Percentage polymorphism between CO39 and Tadukan
was 69 for the SSLP markers, which is similar to other indica
crosses (Panaud et al. 1996). Although, the degree of polymorphism
detected in AFLP analysis (17%) was lower than
the SSLP markers (69%), AFLP is a robust method because of
its ability to identify a large number of bands or markers per
reaction. The degree of polymorphism is higher for SSLP loci
due to the variation in the numbers of dinucleotide, trinucleotide
and tetranucleotide repeats that arise during replication
(Chen et al. 1997). In the present investigation, two SSLP
markers (RM206 and RM21) and three AFLP markers (AF1:
E-aca/M-ctt; AF2: E-aca/M-cat and AF3: E-acc/M-cac2) were
identified with linkage to the blast resistance gene residing on
chromosome 11 (Fig. 1). Interestingly, the AFLP markers
clustered in the vicinity of the resistance locus.