Abstract

The wild relatives of pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] are important source of genetic variation carrying genes for resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses and other morphological traits. In the present study, four wild relatives of pigeonpea were evaluated using 24 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to assess their genetic diversity at molecular level. Each marker, on average, amplified 3.3 alleles with polymorphic information content (PIC) value of 0.53. The dendrogram pattern revealed two distinct genotypic clusters and cultivated pigeonpea was closely related to Cajanus cajanifolius. On the contrary, Cajanus scarabaeoides was the most diverse from the cultivated type. The results also suggest that genetic distance between cultivated pigeonpea and wild species was not related to their hybridization barrier.

Key words: Cajanus, crossability, genetic diversity, simple sequence repeat markers, wild relatives.