Genetic diversity in the barnyard millet (Echinochola frumentacea) germplasms revealed by morphological traits and simple sequence repeat markers

• Published in: Current plant biology Vol. 14; pp. 71 - 78
• Main Authors: M., Manimekalai, M., Dhasarathan, A., Karthikeyan, J., Murukarthick, V.G., Renganathan, K., Thangaraj, S., Vellaikumar, C., Vanniarajan, N., Senthil
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.09.2018
• Subjects: Barnyard millet; Fe and Zn; Genetic diversity; Simple sequence repeats; Barnyard millet; Fe and Zn; Genetic diversity; Simple sequence repeats
• ISSN: 2214-6628; 2214-6628
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cpb.2018.09.006

Barnyard millet is valued for its drought tolerance, rapid maturation, and superior nutritional qualities and it is one of the most under researched crops with respect to characterization of genetic resources and genetic enhancement. In this study, genetic diversity among 61 barnyard millet genotypes from southern India, was investigated using 10 morpho-nutritional traits and 51 expressed sequence tag (EST)-simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. A large variability was observed for morpho-agronomic and grain nutritional traits including for the important traits such as flowering (49.50–82.00 cm), plant height (58.17–152.38 cm), grain yield (12.52 g–41.25 g), Fe (11.05–21.51 mg/100 g) and Zn (2.46–5.91 mg/100 g). Among 51 EST-SSR primers, 14 primers were polymorphic and produced a total of 29 alleles. Polymorphism information content (PIC) value ranged from 0.276 to 0.652 with a mean of 0.43. Clustering of based on Jaccard’s coefficient grouped 61 genotypes into 12 clusters. The study reveals genetic relationships among the southern India barnyard millet genotypes, it can be helpful in planning the utilization patterns and management of barnyard millet germplasm existing in southern India.