Genetic diversity of ambri apple variants of Jammu region in India

The distinct germplasm of any crop species constitute an important genetic resource for extracting genes or alleles, necessary to meet future nutritional and disease resistance needs. In the present study, a total of 29 SSR markers were used to interpret genetic diversity among fifty Ambri apple variants of Jammu region, wherein polymorphic information content (PIC), polymorphic percentage and number of allele per locus were calculated. A total of 54 alleles were amplified by 17 polymorphic SSR loci, and the number of alleles ranged from 3 to 10 with an average of 5.35 alleles per locus. The mean PIC value for all loci was 0.64. The highest polymorphic percentage (62.50) was observed in primer CH04g10, it was lowest (14.20) in primer CH03d12. Jaccard's similarity coefficient among Ambri apple variants ranged from 0.14 to 0.74, which indicated a broad genetic base. The cluster dendrogram partitioned the cultivars into two main clusters. of the 50 collected variants, a wide range of diversity was observed in respect of fruit weight (158.21 to 292.23 g),fruit length (4.35 to 6.37 cm), fruit width (4.62 to 7.62 cm), TSS (13 to 15.91^°Brix), titratable acidity (0.30 to 1.7 per cent) and ascorbic acid (2.10 to 4.80 mg/100g) content. The highest coefficient of variation was observed in titratable acidity (44.31 per cent).Of the selected population, two variants SKJAD-29 and SKJAD-30 proved promising for commercial cultivation.