GENETIC DIVERSITY OF CUCUMBER GENOTYPES REVEALED BY SSR MARKERS AND AGRONOMIC TRAITS

Abstract

Understanding the level of genetic diversity and structure of landraces is essential for economical use of genetic resources. In the present study, we investigated the genetic diversity of 36 representative sample of cucumber genotypes based on 10 quantitative traits and 17 polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Our result revealed variability in flowering behavior, growth habit and fruit characters. We found that the traits, days to opening of first female flower varied from 39.03 to 51.94, fruit length 6.09 to 30.01(cm), fruit weight 104.39 to 277.05(g) and yield per plant 699.38 to 1670.93(g). Genetic distance based on 17 SSR markers among 36 genotypes was quantified ranging from 0.03 to 0.70 indicated a wide diversity among the genotypes selected for evaluation in the present study. These primers produced 2-4 number of alleles with an average 2.76. Polymorphism information content varied from 0.005 to 0.550 with an average of 0.348. The observed heterozygosity mean was 0.098, while gene diversity or expected heterozygosity was 0.625 to 0.057. The distinct genotypes found in this study based on morpho-molecular characters will great interest to cucumber breeder for selection of diverse parent or production of mapping population.