The first assessment of genetic diversity among Turkish leek accessions using molecular and morphological markers

Considering the high importance of leek as a vegetable crop, this species is rarely an object of molecular genetic studies. In this study, SRAP and ISSR markers were used for the first time to investigate the genetic diversity in Turkish leek accessions together with some morphological characters. The study was conducted in Erciyes University Faculty of Agriculture in 2018–2020. Thirty-seven local varieties were collected from different towns in Turkey. Also, nineteen leek accessions, which originated from different regions of Turkey, had been kindly obtained from Plant Gene Banks, USDA. Seventeen SRAP and three ISSR markers were screened; all of them exposing 137 reproducible bands, of which 114 resulted in polymorphic. Polymorphism information content (PIC) varied between 0.209 and 0.840. Genetic similarities varied from 0.563 to 0.960, with an average of 0.789. In addition to molecular markers, the entire gene pool was morphologically characterized over two-year data. For this purpose, eight characters, which play a key role in leek breeding, were measured. At the end of the study, the analyzes made according to the molecular and morphological data were compared both separately and in combination. In all groupings, it was found remarkable that the accessions numbered 98*3, 40*1, 40*4, and 40*6 were positioned differently from the others. These results have provided important insights into the genetic variability of Turkish leek accessions for the first time. Also, the diversity analysis performed in this study provides valuable information to researchers for future studies.