Diversity of wheat genotypes based on morphological markers

Abstract

Phenotypic, biochemical and molecular evaluations of wheat collections are of a great importance to increase the knowledge of genetic diversity as the basic prerequisite for crop improvement in diff erent breeding programs. Large scale genotyping by molecular markers as well as phenotyping of agronomical important traits generated a lot of valuable information for wheat researchers during the last few decades. However, some morphological traits are almost forgotten and very rarely used in evaluating diversity of wheat germplasm. The aim of this study was to analyse the morphological diversity in a collection of 450 wheat accessions originating from all over the world. The genotypes were chosen from the wheat genetic collection of the Small Grains Department and sown at the experimental field of the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, location of Rimski Šančevi (45°20`N, 19°51`E). Five morphological traits were analysed and used as markers for distinctness of wheat genotypes: auricle colour (AC), coleoptile colour (CC), leaf colour (LC), colour at tillering time (CTT) and grain colour (GC). The Shannon diversity index (H) was estimated as a measure of morphological diversity. The results have shown that the most of the genotypes had white auricle colour (87%), white coleoptile colour (81%), dark green colour at tillering time (96%), green leaf colour (61%) and light red grain colour (43%). The average value for the Shannon diversity index was 0,77 indicating high level of morphological diversity in the collection. The lowest diversity (0,07) was found for CCT and the highest individual descriptor diversity was found for GC (0,68). The results indicated that morphological characterization with higer number of analysed traits can be used to improve description of wheat germplasm in addition to molecular and agronomical evaluations.