Agro-Morphological Traits and Microsatellite Marker s Based Genetic Diversity in Indian Genotypes of Linseed ( Linum usitatissimum L.)

Abstract

Linseed is an important oilseed and fibre crop pred ominantly grown in India. The aim of the present research was to evaluate genetic div ersity and patterns of relationships among the 58 genotypes through 10 morphological tra its and 12 polymorphic microsatellite (SSR) markers. Euclidean analysis of agro-morphological traits grouped the 58 genotypes into four clusters of which cluste r I was the largest with 20 accessions while clusters II and IV were most genetically dive rse due to maximum inter-cluster distance. Principal component analysis revealed thr ee traits accounted for more than 86% of the total variation. A total of 41 alleles w ere amplified with 12 SSRs having an average of 5.71 alleles per primer locus. The Polym orphic Information Content (PIC) varied between 0.18 to 0.78. Based on Jaccard's sim ilarity coefficient, the genetic distance varied from 0.07 to 0.89 with an average of 0.54±0. 10. The genotypes RKY-14, KL-213, LC-185 and Kartika were found to be the most diverg ent among all the genotypes studied on the basis of genetic distance. The most diverse genotypes identified in this study can be used in breeding programs to broaden the genetic ba se of the linseed germplasm. Keywords: Diversity, Linseed, Microsatellite markers, Princip al component analysis.