Climate change is hastening the genetic deterioration of several crops in Kenya’s semi-arid regions, putting resource-poor farmers’ food security in jeopardy. This study examined the genetic diversity of available Sorghum bicolor L. germplasm using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers with the purpose of uncovering variants that can be chosen to meet the food security demands of these marginal areas. Based on their placement in the genome and the large repeat sizes they represented, 39 SSR markers were genotyped on accessions from four agro-ecological zones. The Gene Mapper software (version 3.7) was used to call the alleles, the allelobin software was used to assign sizes, and the data was then evaluated with the Power Marker software (version 3.25). The Arlequin programme was used to calculate the diversity indices and intra-population structure (version 2.0). The genetic distances were calculated using Rogers modified distance, and the accessions were clustered using principal component analysis (PCA). The average polymorphic information content (PIC) was 0.536, indicating modest levels of polymorphism. Within accessions, there was 56.37 percent heterogeneity among populations, 38.85 percent variability within individual accessions, and 4.78 percent variability among geographical sources. There was more allele fixation when there was a low level of genetic differentiation (FST = 0.048) and a high level of inbreeding (FIS = 0.59). Despite the fact that most of the accessions were identical, the findings demonstrated that there was significant genetic diversity within and among Kenyan sorghum landraces to contribute in the increase of sorghum output.

Author (S) Details

Rachel K. Kisilu
Department of Plant Sciences and Crop Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, University of Nairobi, P.O.Box 30197-00100, Nairobi, Kenya and Kenya Agricultural Research Institute- Katumani, P.O.Box 340-90100 Machakos, Kenya.

Kahiu Ngugi
Department of Plant Sciences and Crop Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, University of Nairobi, P.O.Box 30197-00100, Nairobi, Kenya.


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