Morphological and molecular genetic diversity analysis of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) maintainers and restorers

Abstract

The success of any pearl millet hybrid programme depends upon the assessment of the structure of parental diversity. In this investigation, polymorphism data generated using 42 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and 12 agromorphological traits were used for genetic diversity assessment among 32 genotypes (29 restorers and 3 maintainers) of pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.].In contrast to morphological data, SSR based clustering pattern and Principal Coordinate Analysis revealed that the genotypes were found to be consistent with their pedigree and origin. Polymorphism information content (PIC) values based on microsatellites ranged from 0.117 to 0.841 per locus with an average PIC of 0.348. Allelic richness varied from two to five per locus. The highest similarity index (0.74) was observed between restorers WGI 58 and WGI 148, whereas the lowest similarity index (0.27) was observed between seed parent 841 B and PPMI 269. AMOVA analysis observed more genetic variance among the individuals than within individuals.The study led to the identification of maintainer 841 B as a genetically diverse parent from other maintainers as well as among most of the restorers and hence may be used in future hybrid development programmes. Further, the correlation between phenotypic and genetic distance matrices was observed to be very low. Appropriate heterotic combinations were identified based on morphological and molecular diversity.