Collection and Evaluation of Genetic Variation of Perilla Accessions in the Jeju Island

In order to understand the genetic variation of the cultivated and weedy types of Perilla crop in Jeju Island of Korea, this study has conducted a field expedition for collecting Perilla germplasm in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Cultivated Perilla crop was almost not cultivated throughout the island, whereas weedy types of both varieties (var.) of frutescens and crispa were often found in roadsides, around a creek, in wastelands, and in areas around a farmer’s fields. The total number of collection was 94 accessions. The seed colors of cultivated var. frutescens were white and brown, while the weedy var. frutescens were gray, brown, and dark brown. The weedy var. crispa exhibited gray and dark brown seed colors. The most accessions of cultivated var. frutescens and weedy types of var. frutescens and var. crispa revealed hard seeds, except one accession of cultivated var. frutescens which had soft seeds. A total of 17 simple sequence repeat loci showed polymorphism, producing a total of 149 alleles among the 85 Perilla accessions collected from Jeju Island. The average gene diversity for accessions of cultivated var. frutescens, weedy var. frutescens, and weedy var. crispa respectively showed 0.346, 0.649, and 0.463. The accessions of weedy types of var. frutescens and var. crispa comparatively exhibited higher genetic diversity than those of cultivated var. frutescens. The accessions collected would be useful for preserving the genetic diversity of this crop for further breeding programs of the Perilla crop in Korea.