Leaf Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Selected Accessions of Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam) in the Field Gene Bank- Gannoruwa Sri Lanka

Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam) belongs to the family Moraceae. Selected jackfruit accessions in Gannoruwa Fruit Crop Research and Development Station were studied based on molecular markers and leaf morphology. The main objective of the study was to evaluate the morphological and molecular diversity of specific jackfruit accessions collected from an or chard in Udayalkattikulam Mullaitivu, Sri Lanka. Morphological studies were conducted on two recommend ed accessions (Maharagama and Mandoor) and 11 other accessions. Four accessions were subsequently selected for molecular analysis. Leaf morphology was studied usi ng the descriptors provided by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI). Molecular characteriz ation focused on the Internal Transcribe Spacer (ITS) region in ribosomal RNA. Morphological data were analyzed u sing PAST 4.03. A scatter plot was obtained from the Principal Component Analysis (PCoA). ITS sequence data were analy zed by MEGA 11 and DnaSP 5.10. Based on the leaf morphology, accession ACC-17-267 was found to be morpholog ically distinct from other accessions, while Maharagama and ACC-15-27 showed close morphological similarity. The four accessions (ACC-1-275, ACC-3-265, ACC-7-249, ACC-8-271) selected for molecular analysis were closely related to Mandoor for their leaf morphology. Molecular analysis revealed no genetic distance between Maharagama Mandoor and ACC-7-249. According to the dendrogra m resulting from MEGA 11, Maharagama, Mandoor and ACC-7-249 clustered into one group. Diversity analysis revealed that the selected Jackfruit accessions exhibited high haplotype diversity and moderate level of nucleotide di versity (Pi: 0.115). These findings suggest that the ITS locus is an effective marker for characterizing the genetic diversity of Jackfruit.