Assessment of Genetic Diversity of some Sweet Sorghum Genotypes (Sorghum bicolor L.) using Agro-Morphological and Molecular Markers

Abstract

Genetic diversity plays important role for successful genetic improvement. In this study morphological and molecular data were used to evaluate twenty Sudanese sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) genotypes. Two field and laboratory experiments were conducted to assess the genetic diversity between these genotypes. The field experiment for morphological data was conducted in the summer season of 2014 at demonstration farm, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Bakhat Al– Ruda, Elduiem, Sudan. A randomized complete block design with four replications was used and four morphological characters were measured included plant height (cm), stem diameter (cm), leaf area (cm2) and leaf area index. Phenotypic (PCV) and genotypic (GCV) coefficients of variation and phenotypic correlation between morphological traits were estimated. For the laboratory experiment, 14 SSRs markers were used to estimate the genetic diversity based on molecular level in the sweet sorghum genotypes. Genetic analysis was performed using principal coordinates analysis, dissimilarity between genotypes ranged from 0.13 to 1.14, the Dendrogram was constructed depending on Percentage Disagreement Value using Weighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) clustering three clusters were grouped. The twenty sweet sorghum genotypes revealed several patterns of variation, although some of them share same eco-geographic location. The results indicated that 13 primers (93%) were polymorphic, generated 29 alleles 26(90%) of this alleles were polymorphic. The significance which reveled from the twenty sweet sorghum genotypes based on morphological and SSR markers data could be of great value in any sweet sorghum breeding program.