1ICAR-Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur-342 003, Rajasthan, India
2ICAR-Indian Institute of Maize Research, Ludhiana-141 001, Punjab, India
3Mountain Research Centre for Field Crops, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Khudwani-192 101, Jammu and Kashmir, India
4Department of Plant Production, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
5Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A and M University, 370 Olsen Blvd., College Station, TX, 77843-2474, USA
6Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh, Egypt
7Department of Field Crops, Faculty of Agriculture, Siirt University, Siirt, 56100, Turkey
*Corresponding Author: Shabir H. Wani, Mountain Research Centre for Field Crops, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Khudwani-192 101, Jammu and Kashmir, India, Email: shabirhwani@skuastkashmir.ac.in
**Ayman El Sabagh, Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh, Egypt, Email: ayman.elsabagh@ agr.kfs.edu.eg
Online published on 1 October, 2024.
Moth bean is a very nutritive and hardy crop, especially for resource poor-arid agriculture. The limited use of cultivars in moth bean breeding resulted into narrow genetic base. This study aimed to diversify the conical genetic base and developimproved cultivars, through molecular (RAPD) and morpho-agronomic characterization of commercially elite moth bean cultivars.
Elite moth bean cultivars (15) were evaluated for 11 morpho-agronomic traits. Eleven RAPD markers were used to amplify genomic DNA and perform molecular characterization. Clustering approach was used for grouping of the cultivars.
RAPD markers revealed high polymorphism in 15 elite moth bean cultivars. The polymorphism information content (PIC) values varied within the range of 0.45 to 0.88, with an average of 0.77. The number of alleles at different loci ranged from 4 to 16, with an average of 10 alleles per locus. When employing UPGMA-based cluster analysis, utilizing 11 morpho-agronomic traits, the cultivars were grouped into four clusters. However, when RAPD markers were used, the cultivars were grouped into five clusters. The Jaccard's similarity coefficient and Manhattan dissimilarity coefficient fell within the ranges of 0.18 to 0.70 and 0.02 to 0.42, respectively. These values signify the degree of genetic variability within the cultivars. Furthermore, a Mantel test was conducted to examine the correlation between agronomic traits and the RAPD-based matrix. The results showed a negative correlation, but it was not statistically significant.The high PIC values and the successful amplification of multiple loci demonstrate the efficacy of RAPD markers in assessing genetic diversity in moth beans. The study revealed enormous genetic variation among cultivars and crosses can be attempted between cultivars of different groups to create better recombinants in moth bean breeding programmes.
Cataloguing, Cluster analysis, Diversity, Moth bean, RAPD
