Molecular diversity assessment of AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center elite-parental mungbeans

Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek) has been a mandate crop of AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center (AVRDC) over the past 30 years. Mungbean breeding lilies developed by AVRDC were released to farmers in collaborating Countries and used as genetic stocks by national programs. Over 6,500 crosses have been made by AVRDC breeding program using mainly 39 parental lilies. In the present Study, 241 SSRs were employed to assess diversity among the parents and 5 cultivars derived from AVRDC breeding lilies. Forty-eight SSRs expressed polymorphism among them. The AVRDC elite parental germplasm possesses a high genetic diversity. In the 39 parental lilies, a total of 175 alleles were detected by the polymorphic SSR markers ranging from 2 to 19 alleles per marker and with PIC values ranging from 0.049 to 0.883. The polymorphic SSRs distinguished all the mungbean lilies. Grouping the germplasm by UPGMA clustering based oil SSR polymorphism was in general agreement with the origins and/or pedigree information. The 5 cultivars selected from AVRDC breeding lilies had a moderate genetic diversity. Of the 175 alleles found ill 39 parental lilies., 69 alleles (39.43%) were present in the 5 cultivars. The cultivars were L grouped, With the Philippine germplasm and most of them were close to one of the parents in their pedigrees. Based oil the results, reduction in gene diversity due to breeding among AVRDC elite parental mungbeans is not high. Yet, the diversity found in this study is relatively high as compared to those from larger collections of cultivated,mungbean in the previous studies.