Molecular and Morphological Characterization of Wheat Genotypes under Drought Condition in Nigerian Sudan Savannah

Abstract

Drought stress is one of the most important abiotic constrains affecting cereal crop in the world that causes serious yield loses and threat to sustainability and food security especially in wheat thereby causing the insufficient supply of food. Therefore, understanding the genetic characterization of drought stress response is very important. This study was designed to reveal the morphological and molecular characterization of wheat genotypes using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and to estimate the genetic diversity and relationships among the cultivars subjected to drought conditions. A total of 15 wheat genotypes were evaluated for quantitative morphological traits such as plant height, number of seeds per spike, 1000 seed weight, spike length, flag leaf length, grain weight and proline content. Molecular characterization was done using a set of simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. A total of 12 SSR markers were used to analyze the varieties and the genetic diversity and relationship among them. The results showed that, the drought-stressed plants had lower plant height, number of seeds per spike, 1000 seed weight, spike length, flag leaf length and grain weight than the non-stressed plants, while proline content was found to be higher in stressed plants than the non-stressed. Molecular analyses indicated significant variation among the genotypes with the mean PIC value of 0.64, mean heritability ratio of 0.67 and mean allele number of 8.9. This study also indicates the significance of SSRs as a useful tool in marker-assisted breeding about drought tolerance and for developing strategies for improving drought tolerance in cereals.