Comparison of cultivar identification methods of longkong, langsat and duku: Lansium spp.

Abstract

DNA amplification (RAPD), sequencing (RAPD-based PCR) and quantification (flow cytometry) were tested for their ability to identify Lansium spp.; duku, langsat and longkong. The results revealed that all the techniques tested can be used successfully. It was clearly seen that DNA amplification and sequencing are cumbersome, expensive and time consuming. Flow cytometry is simple and quick to use, less labour intensive and accurate/repeatable and hence can be considered a practical alternative to the others. The data for measurement of DNA content showed that duku has the lowest DNA content while longkong has the highest DNA content and langsat was intermediate.

Keywords

• cultivar identification
• Lansium spp.
• PCR
• RAPD
• DNA sequencing
• flow cytometry
• phylogenetic relationship