SSR Based Genetic Diversity in Magic Lines of Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill)

Soybean MAGIC lines are recently developed by tailor made source of germplasm that have undergone heavy genetic recombination. The present study was carried out in Kharif 2018 to Rabi 2019 - 20 to assess its extent of genetic diversity at molecular level in 95 soybean MAGIC lines along with six checks by using 30 SSR markers from which 27 were found polymorphic. A total of 106 alleles were generated with an average of 3.53 and a range of two to six alleles per loci. The value of observed heterozygosity was varying from 0.00 to 0.099 indicating a higher frequency of homozygotes among the accessions. Maximum PIC was 0.955 for Staga001 followed by 0.948 (Satt168, Satt453, Satt534), 0.947(Satt565) and 0.945(Satt371). The range of Jaccard’s similarity coefficient was varying from 0.089 to 1, most of the values were between 0.2 to 0.3 with an average of 0.3 indicating considerable diversity exists among the genotypes. A total of six main clusters were formed by UPGMA clustering method. Cluster II was the largest comprising 48 genotypes which were grouped into four sub-clusters. Clustering based on SSR markers revealed a very precise grouping of the genotypes based on their relatedness than their phenotypic data alone. Hence it can be successfully deployed for selecting desirable genotypes which can be utilized in future breeding programs for exploiting heterosis or in the introgression of genes for biotic and abiotic stress tolerance in soybean crop.