Genetic diversity analysis of groundnut genotypes using SSR markers

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.), an important oilseed crop is a rich source of oil and protein. Molecular marker technologies are the effective tools and they are used for the assessment of genetic variability because they are not influenced by the environment. Among the molecular markers, Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) has proved to be the most powerful tool for variety identification in groundnut and has much potential in genetic and breeding studies. Among the 17 SSR primer pairs used for assessing the genetic diversity, 6 primer pairs (24.0 per cent) were polymorphic. The genotype TMV 2 was susceptible to rust and late leaf spot diseases and it was separately clustered in the dendrogram and among the eleven foliar disease resistant genotypes, the genotypes viz., COG 0423, COG 0436 and COG 0432 were distantly clustered from TMV 2. Hence, by using the genotypes viz., TMV 2, COG 0423, COG 0436 and COG 0432, three combinations viz., TMV 2 x COG 0423, TMV 2 x COG 0436 and TMV 2 x C0G 0432 could be made for further studies.