GENETIC DIVERSITY IN LARGE CARDAMOM (Amomum subulatum Roxb.)DISSECTED USING RAPD MARKERS.

Large cardamomis major cash generating spice having high commercial impact on farmers forits high economical values, beside spice it is used for medicinal purposes. Present study was done to explore genetic variation present in Nepal cardamom (Amomum subulatum Roxb.)socollections of large cardamom were done from three districts of Eastern hills of Nepal during 2012. Presence of wild cardamom in forests of Nepal made possibility of high genetic diversity of large cardamoms found in Nepal. All together 16 samples were analyzed using 25 random primers that generated 169 different loci and were found highly polymorphic (90.90%).The Nei’sgenetic diversity among all collected accessions was found to be 0.295 similarly; Shannon Information Index value of 0.448 also suggested high genetic diversity for collected large cardamom accessions. Dendrogram based on Dice coefficient separates all the cultivars into 4 major clusters at 0.68 level.Wild relatives of large cardamom formed separate cluster similarly cultivar Varlange also formed separate cluster depicts large variation in these cultivars in respects to cultivated cultivars viz. Ramsay, Golsay, Ramla, Chivesay and Jirmale. This result shows the potentiality of RAPD markers in accessing genetic diversity in clonally propagated crop such as large cardamom and also to distinguish difference among large cardamom accessions.