Diversity Assessment of Turkish Maize Landraces Based on Fluorescent Labelled SSR Markers

摘要

Landraces of maize represent a valuable genetic resource for breeding and genetic studies. Since 1970, landraces have been collected from all over Turkey, but the genetic diversity represented in this collection is still largely unknown. In this study, a sample of 98 landraces sampled from 45 provinces of Turkey was assessed genotypically at 28 simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci and phenotypically for 19 morphological traits. The landraces varied significantly for all the latter traits. A total of 172 SSR alleles were detected, giving a mean of 6.21 alleles per locus. The genetic distance between pairs of landraces ranged from 0.18 to 0.63, with a mean of 0.35. Positive and negative correlation exists among different morphological and agronomic traits. Positive association among different traits showed that improvement of one character may simultaneously improve the other desired trait. Based on UPGMA dendrogram and Neighbor-Net (NNET) analyses from both morphological traits and SSR data, respectively, it is obvious that maize landraces from the same geographical region were often placed in different clusters, indicating that grouping based on genetic parameters was not closely related to the geographic origin. The wide diversity present in Turkish maize landraces could be used as genetic resource in designing maize breeding program for developing new cultivars adapted to different geographic and climatic conditions, and may also contribute to worldwide breeding programs.