Application of RAPD on Analysis of Genetic Relationships between Inbred Lines and Prediction of Heterosis in Pansy (Viola wittrockiana)

RAPD was used to analyse the genetic diversity between18 inbred lines of pansy,and 5 inbredlines were selected for a diallel analysis to study the correlations between the genetic distances based onRAPD and the heterosis of10 traits of pansy.Twenty-one random primers were selected and 127 polymor-phic bands out of total 167 were obtained,and UPGMA cluster analysis was performed,to obtain 5 maingroups,which were consistent with the flower size types and the original places of the inbred lines.No sig-nificant correlations were observed between the RAPD distance and heterosis in all traits except for theflower numbers at0.1 level.The results indicated that it is unsuitable to predict heterosis of these traitsexpect for the flower number using RAPD genetic distance in pansy at present.