Genetic diversity of Iranian Chrysanthemum morifolium cultivars using morphological traits and sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) markers

Knowledge of genetic diversity and relatedness of cultivars; is essential for a successful breeding scheme. The present study was conducted to assess the genetic diversity of 30 Iranian Chrysanthemum morifolium cultivars using sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) molecular markers and morphological traits. For this purpose, 30 cultivars were planted in a completely randomized block design with three replications at the Research Farm of Isfahan University of Technology in 2015. The evaluation of morphological traits during the two consecutive years showed a wide range of variations among different cultivars. The results obtained by the analysis of variance also revealed the significant effects of cultivar, environment and cultivarxenvironment interaction on all studied traits. Correlation analysis of variables further showed that flowering durability was affected by plant morphology. Results of cluster analysis based on the phenotypic data divided the cultivars into six groups. Molecular analysis using SRAP markers produced a total of 213 identifiable fragments with an average of 21.3 polymorphic bands per combination. The polymorphic information content (PIC) value was 0.46. Along with the Bayesian structure analysis which showed that the highest value of the maximum delta log likelihood (Delta K) was K=3, cluster analysis also grouped the cultivars into three main clusters. The high value of admixture revealed ancestral relationships between the studied cultivars. Overall, our findings revealed the potential of SRAP markers and morphological traits for the analysis of genetic diversity in Chrysanthemum. This can be, in turn, used in selecting the desired parents in the hybrid breeding programs as well as developing superior cultivars for ornamental applications.