Assessment of Genetic Diversity in Durum and Bread Wheat Genotypes Based on Drought Tolerance and SSR Markers

Six durum and twelve bread wheat genotypes were evaluated under favorable and drought-stressed field conditions, and screened with thirty simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers. The traits studied were stomata frequency (STF), relative water content (RWC), flag leaf area (FLA), flag leaf weight (FLW), flag leaf dry matter content (FLD), chlorophyll a content (Chl.a), chlorophyll b content (Chl.b), grain yield/plant (GYP) and 1000-kerenl weight (TKW). Highly significant differences were observed among wheat genotypes for all the traits, indicating considerable genetic variation. Moderate to high broad-sense heritability estimates were observed for the studied traits. Under drought stress, GYP was positively correlated with RWC, FLA, FLW and TKW, whereas negatively correlated with STF. G3 (Svevo) and G6 (WK-12-1) were the most drought-tolerant durum wheat, whereas G11 (L.S-15) and G16 (SIDS-1) were the most drought-tolerant bread wheat genotypes. SSR markers analysis indicated considerable genetic variation between and within durum and bread wheat genotypes. The percentage of polymorphism ranged from 14.3% (Xgwm174-5D) to 100% (Xgwm294-2A and Xgwm573-7B), with an average of 61.4%. The polymorphism information content (PIC) ranged from 0.20 (Xwmc596-7A) to 0.48 (Xgwm294-2A), with an average of 0.33.The highest polymorphism (77.1%) was observed in the B genome followed by A (57.8%) and D (50.0%) genomes. Cluster analysis based on phenotypic data distinguished the most drought-tolerant genotypes (G6 and G11) from the remaining genotypes. Cluster analysis based on SSR markers distinguished durum from bread wheat genotypes. The study indicated that phenotypic data and SSR markers were effective in assessing the genetic diversity in the studied genotypes.