Molecular dissection of genetic diversity in pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L) Millsp.] minicore collection

The present investigation was carried out using 191genotypes as mini core collections of pigeonpea along with 5 check varieties to know the genetic diversity at molecular level. Significant variation was observed by the way of analysis of variance for nine characters viz., days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of branches per plant, pod bearing length, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, seed yield per plant and hundred seed weight. Molecular diversity using 18 polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers divided genotypes into 15 clusters, of which ICP11059 and AK-101 were solitary, indicating their distinctiveness among all genotypes. Similarly, BSMR-533, JKM-7, RVK-285, ICP-1126, ICP-348, ICP-6859 and ICP-7869 were found distinct among the genotypes. Geographical origin based diversity separated Indian and non Indian genotypes. The Un weighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic mean (UPGMA) based dendrogram indicated distinctiveness of ICP-13633 and Bennur local, as they formed solitary cluster. The SSR marker CcM 602, as it could differentiate 4 genotypes at different base pair size can be used for identification and finger printing of genotypes.