Variability of greater yam (Dioscorea alata L.) cultivars in Malaysia

Abstract

Dioscorea alata L. or greater yam is one of the old and highly variable tuber crop in Malaysia. Genetic variation of this species is poorly documented, which is becoming a hindrance in optimizing the use of its genetic resources available in this country. Hence, a study on the assessment of the morphological traits and molecular marker variations in the germplasms of D. alata collected in Malaysia was carried out in order to identify the most variables characters and to assess the genetic relationship among the variants.