Vol. 11, Special Issue 6 (2022)

Author(s):
Neelothpala M, K Jhansi Rani, S Vanisri, Sujatha P and Bhadru D

Abstract:
Maize (Zea mays L.) is an important cereal crop of different countries in the world. Hybrid cultivars have played a vital role in increasing the productivity of maize. The success in identifying heterotic hybrids in maize hybrid breeding depends on the availability of genetically diverse maize inbred lines developed from different heterotic gene pool. In the present study, a set of five inbred lines were analyzed using 50 polymorphic Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) markers. A total of 111 alleles were generated with a mean of 2.2 alleles per locus. The Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) value ranged from 0.164 to 0.672 with an average of 0.345. Gene diversity (He) value ranged from 0.20 to 0.80 with a mean value of 0.468 while the value of Observed heterozygosity (Ho) ranged from 0 to 1 with a mean value of 0.084. The dendrogram generated with unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) cluster analysis revealed three clusters with a degree of genetic distance ranging from 0 to 0.1. The information on diversity of inbred lines generated in this study would be much useful in developing heterotic hybrids.