Abstract
Sorghum bicolor is one of the most important cereal crops around the world where the availability of water is limited. The study of genetic variability among the sorghum accessions will enable accurate results in breeding programs and in mapping studies. Using SSR markers that were spread out evenly on the sorghum genome, it was found that all 23 accessions from the Maharashtra region could be put into three main classes. These classes were linked to the biological status and other traits and characteristics of the accessions. The gene diversity measured in terms of polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.00 to 0.24, with the average PIC value found to be 0.067, where a 0.24 PIC value indicated the presence of two alleles per locus. Expected heterozygosity, or gene diversity, was computed according to Nei (1973) and varied from 0.00 to 0.28 with an average of 0.07. A total of 9 SSR marker alleles were detected, with an average of 1.5 alleles per marker. The number of alleles per marker ranged from 1 (msbCIR329, Xtxp021, and Xtxp278) to 2 (Xtxp321, msbCIR306, and Xisep0310). The fragment size of the allele ranged from 109 (msbCIR329) to 252 (Xtxp321 and Xtxp278).