Characterization of European hazelnut (Corylus avellana) cultivars using SSR markers

World hazelnut production is based primarily on selections from the wild. In this study, we used 21 pairs of simple sequence repeat (SSR) primers to investigate genetic diversity in 270 clonal accessions of European hazelnut (Corylus avellana) representing a wide geographic range. Of the 270 accessions, 198 had unique fingerprints while 72 were duplicates. Based on the 198 unique accessions, the number of detected alleles per locus averaged 9.81 and observed heterozygosity (H-o) averaged 0.67. Of the 206 total alleles amplified, 20 were unique to a single accession. A genetic similarity matrix was constructed and the resulting dendrogram revealed four major geographical groups: Central European, Black Sea, English and Spanish-Italian. SSR alleles indicated the parentage of 31 accessions. The fingerprints are publicly available through the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) database. The identification of duplicate and mislabeled accessions will improve management of hazelnut genebanks, and information on genetic variation in hazelnut will assist the international research community.