CAO Xuelian, CHEN Ying, WANG Di, LIU Tianhai, PENG Weihong, TANG Jie, ZHENG Yuting
Using 64 Auricularia cornea strains as the materials, 20 characteristics, including six mycelium characteristics and 14 fruiting body characteristics, were screened for DUS test. After phenotypic observation and analysis of variance for mycelium growth rate, three mycelium characteristics, mycelium colloids, dorsal color of colonies and cultivation rod color, were eventually selected as DUS test characteristics for mycelium. Two quantitative characteristics, fresh ear piece length and fresh ear piece width, were selected from the 14 fruiting body characteristics for variance analysis of six sampling sizes (20, 40, 60, 100, 150, 200). The results showed that there was no significant difference between these sampling sizes, and thus 40 was selected as the sampling size for fruiting body characteristics. The coefficients of variation for fresh ear piece length, width, thickness, and ratio of dried to wet product ranged from 16.00% to 38.17%, indicating that the genetic variation of these characteristics was rich. Normality test and frequency distribution analysis showed that the four quantitative characteristics generally followed a normal distribution. After comparison of probability grading method, traditional grading method and least significant difference method, the probability grading method was determined as the grading method for the four quantitative characteristics, and every trait was divided into three to five grades. According to cluster analysis, the tested strains were divided into four clusters when the genetic similarity coefficient was 1.82. Predominant ventral color of fresh ear pieces was the representative characteristics of cluster Ⅲ and cluster Ⅳ which contained about 97% of the tested strains, thus making it a suitable grouping trait. Based on the above evaluation and analyses, 17 tested characteristics (three mycelium characteristics and 14 fruiting body characteristics) were suitable for DUS test of A. cornea.