Restriction Digestion of Arbitary Amplification Fragments of Annual Bluegrass

The production of co‐dominant markers by digesting arbitrarily primed amplification fragments with restriction endonucleases would be useful in genetics and plant breeding studies. The feasibility of generating restriction amplification fragment length polymorphism (RAFLP) for use as genetic markers for annual bluegrass (Poa annua L.) was evaluated. Five restriction enzymes that (HindIII, Kpnl, Pstl, Apal, and Smal) successfully digested DNA in the amplification buffer tested were used to digest arbitrarily amplified DNA from P. annua. These restriction enzymes used in conjunction with 53 primers identified 82 restriction loci. Evaluation of 44 loci revealed three RAFLP markers. These and other RAFLP markers should be useful as codominant genetic markers for P. annua and other species where few genetic markers exist, little genomic information is available, or tissue is limited.