Genetic diversity of winter wheat cultivars and strains determined by electrophoregrams of gliadin and glutenin proteins

Based on the polymorphism of gliadin and glutenin proteins relationships of 45 cultivars and strains of winter wheat were evaluated. The cluster analysis showed a considerable variation of the investigated genotypes. The similarity indices were calculated using the Nei and Li formula. The genetic distances between the cultivars ranged from 1.00 to 0.12. The highest similarity index - SI=1.00- being proof of the identical physicochemical composition of storage proteins, was found for the pair Farmer and Elena. The groups of similar and genetically distant cultivars have been presented in the form of a dendrogram. The possibility of using the results obtained from the cluster analysis in breeding programmes has been discussed.