GENETIC RESOURCES AND CROP EVOLUTION, cilt.69, ss.1889-1899, 2022 (SCI-Expanded)
Turkey has a high diversity of native and commercially grown plants. European cranberrybush, a fruit species grown commercially in the country, is of interest because of its health benefits. This study aimed to determine genetic diversity uisng morphological, molecular, and phytochemical markers in twenty-four different genotypes of European cranberrybush from Kayseri province, which is an important region in the production of plant in Turkey. The results show wide variations among genotypes in the morphological parameters. The G13 genotype was the prominent genotype compared to other genotypes in leaf length (130.69 mm), leaf width (135.76 mm) and fruit length (10.01 mm). The fruit weights of genotypes varied between 0.16 g and 0.80 g. In ISSR marker analysis, out of 73 scoreable bands obtained from 11 different primer sets, 44 were polymorphic. The average polymorphism rate in the study was 60.27%, and the similarity index of the genotypes varied between 0.77 and 0.95. Total flavonoid, phenolic and anthocyanin content ranged from 106.28 mg CAE/100 g to 318.87 mg CAE/100 g, 451.23 mg GAE/100 g to 679.57 mg GAE/100 g, and 16.48 mg cyn-3-gluc /100 g to 21.36 mg cyn-3-gluc /100 g, respectively. The results of this study can be useful to plant breeders interested in developing and conserving the species and provide a baseline for new studies on European cranberry.