In order to formulate appropriate strategies for the conservation and utilization of the wild mulberry genetic resources available in India, a study was undertaken with 20 mulberry genotypes from the four different species. Seventeen intersimple sequence repeat primers were used to generate a total of 114 markers, of which 98 (85.96%) were polymorphic. Seven unique bands for Morus serrata Roxb. and one for both M. serrata Roxb. and Morus macroura Miq. were identified, of which one fragment has been sequenced and deposited in the EMBL-GeneBank (AJ-585512). The genetic dissimilarity coefficients varied from 0.078 to 0.530 among these genotypes and from 0.168 to 0.465 among the species. The dendrograms realized from these markers clustered the genotypes into three groups. The outermost group was M. serrata Roxb., which was followed by the group of M. macroura Miq. and the innermost group contained genotypes of Morus indica L. and Morus alba L. This intermixing of genotypes of M. indica and M. alba supports the view that M. indica is merely a synonym of M. alba. Distribution of the genotypes on a two-dimensional figure upon multidimensional scaling with ALSCAL program, further, confirmed the genetic divergence between the cultivated and wild mulberry groups. On the basis of the results a few potential wild mulberry genotypes were identified for its conservation and utilization in breeding programs to confer the stress tolerance to the cultivated varieties of mulberry.

Mulberry (Morus indica L.) is an important tree crop being exploited for feeding the silk-producing insect Bombyx mori L. In order to identify parents suitable for breeding to raise high-yielding varieties for the non-traditional areas of Kerala, India and also to identify markers associated with leaf yield attributing traits, the present study was undertaken with 44 mulberry genotypes. Variability on morphobiometric traits and molecular markers, generated with 12 selected ISSR primers, was estimated. Significant differences between genotypes were observed for all the traits. The dendrogram generated with morpho-biometric characters clustered the genotypes into three distinct groups and one isolate, while the same using Inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers clustered the genotypes into five groups and six isolates. The greater resolving power of the ISSR markers was evident form the dendrograms. Using step-wise multiple regression analysis, a number of markers associated with number of branches, total shoot length, leaf weight, internodal distance, leaf chlorophyll, protein, leaf moisture percentage were identified. These markers could be of much use in Marker assisted selection (MAS) breeding programmes in mulberry, especially when no genetic information in terms of linkage maps and Quantitative Trait Locis (QTLs) is available a plant with high heterozygosity and a long juvenile period.

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