Genetic diversity of different late blight responsive Indian potato cultivars as revealed by SSR markers

Abstract

Forty seven resistant and susceptible to late blight Indian potato cultivars were used to assess genetic diversity present among them. A set of 24 microsatellite markers applied which generated 193 alleles with an average of 7.04 per loci and 4.10 per genotype. Eight alleles were specific to resistant cultivars, whereas 11 were specific to susceptible. Genetic diversity among the moderately resistant genotypes was found to be higher than the susceptible and resistant ones. The cluster analysis grouped the cultivars into 2 main and 4 sub clusters with late blight resistant genotypes distributed across the clusters. The diverisity among the genotypes was very high; however, diversity within groups viz., resistant, moderately resistant and susceptible was found to be very low (6%). The findings of the study would be of great help to the breeders in selecting genotypes for developing improved varieties of potato.