Genetic Variation of Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Monech) Varieties Assessed by ISSR Markers

Sorghum is the fifth most important cereal crop in the world. The United States, India, Nigeria, Mexico, Sudan and China currently produce the major grain sorghum. More than half the world’s sorghum is mostly grown in the semi-arid tropics, where it is a staple food for millions of people in India and Africa. Today the development of several techniques of different markers and considering the limits of the use of morphological markers, the reliable estimate of DNA fingerprinting of the sorghum cultivars was assessed using RAPD and ISSR markers. So this study was undertaken to establish the DNA fingerprinting technique for identification of sorghum varieties with ISSR markers and to ensure such technique for claim of intellectual property right and also for estimation of genetic relatedness of these sorghum varieties morpho- agronomicaly to each other. Eleven different sorghum varieties released by this centre for different purposes like grain, sweet sorghum stalk, alternative uses like hurda, pop etc. were studied for genetic variation using thirty five ISSR primers from which eleven primers showed distinct polymorphism. From above primers ISSR-809, ISSR-819, ISSR-886 and ISSR-887 gave good amplication with polymorphism to different varieties. On the basis of polymorphic bands dendrogram of these varieties was constructed which reflected that grain sorghum varieties namely P. Anuradha, P. Chitra and P. Revati came under one group while sweet sorghum based varieties P. Amruta and SSV 84 constructed in one umbrella.