Screening of Soybean Genotypes against Drought on the Basis of Gene-Linked Microsatellite Markers

Soybean is elegant to be a key crop attributable to its significant contribution as vegetable oil and protein in human diet. Nevertheless, inopportunely, its production has been exaggeratedly declined due to the ordinariness of drought related stress. In present investigation, total 12 SSR molecular markers were employed for screening of 53 soybean genotypes to determine the effectiveness of existing markers in genetic diversity analysis as well as their validation on the basis of their connotation with drought tolerant gene. Among applied drought tolerance gene-linked SSR molecular markers, the highest genetic diversity (0.6629) was documented with marker Satt520 while lowest (0.0370) was for the marker Satt557 with an average of 0.3746. The highest PIC value was 0.5887 prearranged by similar markers viz., Satt520 and lowest 0.0363 by Satt557 with the mean worth of 0.3063. Dendrogram constructed owing to banding profile of used markers was able to victimize some putative drought tolerant genotypes i.e., JS97-52, JS95-60 from rest of the genotypes. The findings of the current investigation may contribute towards improvement of soybean to bread drought tolerant varieties in future.