Ethiopia is considered as the possible origin and center of diversity for okra. Therefore, this study was conducted with the objectives of determining the genetic distance between indigenous okra collections and exotic commercial varieties and assessing genetic diversity of okra genotypes. The field experiment was conducted at Dire Dawa in 2016 using 14 indigenous collections and 11 exotic varieties in 5 x 5 triple lattice design. Data were collected on 9 and 29 qualitative and quantitative traits, respectively. The genetic distance measured by Euclidean distance ranged from 3.1 to 12.6 with a mean of 7.2. The highest genetic distances were observed between indigenous okra collections and exotic varieties viz. Guba-12 and NamdHari (12.6) followed by Guba-12 and Vellayani (12.3) and Mythri and Guba-12 (11.8). Dendrogram constructed by Unweighted Pair-group Method with Arithmetic Means grouped the 25 genotypes into seven major clusters in which the three clusters (Cluster II, III and V) were solitary, consisted of one genotype each, Cluster I consisted of six Indian commercial varieties, Cluster IV comprised of seven genotypes (four indigenous okra collections, one variety from USA and two from India), while Cluster VI and VII comprised of 5 and 4 indigenous okra collections, respectively. This study revealed the presence of wide genetic diversity among indigenous okra collections and exotic commercial varieties.

The poultry red mite, Dermanyssus gallinae (De Geer, 1778), is widely regarded as the significant ectoparasite of egg-laying hens worldwide. Since many molecular studies on poultry red mites have focused on analyzing COI and ITS1-2 genes, the present study aimed to identify 16S rDNA and the relatively understudied nuclear 18S rDNA genes of Turkish D. gallinae populations. Twenty-eight different D. gallinae populations were collected from henhouses throughout Türkiye, and the target genes were amplified using conventional PCR after morphological analysis. Haplotype analyses of the 16S rDNA sequences revealed 14 different haplotypes, with Turkish D. gallinae grouped into two of these haplotypes. The intra-species genetic variation of the 18S rDNA and 16S rDNA sequences examined in the present study and the available sequences in public GeneBank were determined as 0.17% and 0.53%, respectively. The obtained sequences belonging to D. gallinae from Türkiye were submitted to GenBank for the first time. Given the importance of identifying genetic diversity within and between species across different geographical regions, the obtained data may contribute substantially to the genetic knowledge of the PRMs.