Abstract
Japanese chestnut is a traditional nut in Japan. Though almost all the produce from Japanese chestnut trees grown in China are shipped to Japan for processing, their characterization has not been reported. In this paper, we report the origin and discrimination of varieties in China using randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. All varieties examined in this report could be discriminated by 162 kinds of RAPD markers raised from 8 primers. Four varieties introduced to China from Japan seemed to be seedlings of the same varieties being cultivated in Japan. One of the varieties introduced from Japan, ‘Moriwase’ had a low similarity to ‘Moriwase’ in Japan. This finding suggests that ‘Moriwase’ in China was misinterpreted during the process by which had been introduced from Japan, or propagated via seedling. Five varieties bred in China were classified in the same group as the old varieties in Japan.
