'Plant Breeding: Sustaining the Future' Abstracts of the XVIth EUCARPIA Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 10-14 September 2001 ANALYSIS OF GENETIC VARIATION IN LOLIUM PERENNE (PERENNIAL RYEGRASS) USING MOLECULAR TECHNIQUES J.M. VAN TONDER, C.G. KAVANAGH, G.A. WILLIAMS, E.J. WALSH Plant Biotechnology Group, National Agricultural and Veterinary Biotechnology Centre, University College Dublin, Ireland

Rye grasses, particularly Lolium perenne, are of particular importance to Irish Agriculture.  Grassland enterprise makes up 77% of Ireland’s total agricultural product, which is worth IR£1,935 million per annum. The current phase of the project is concerned with estimating genetic heterogeneity among an array of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) varieties using a range of molecular techniques (i.e. AFLPs, ITS sequence and RAPD-PCR analysis).  The programme aims to combine the genetic information with known phenotypic data to provide the breeder with a valuable method of selecting varieties with sufficient variation to maintain a long-term breeding programme.  Phylogentic trees have been constructed from both generated RAPD-PCR profiles and ITS sequence data.  AFLP analysis of variation is currently being employed with a view towards isolating molecular markers for QTLs of interest.