Association Analysis of Agronomic Traits in Common Millet (Punicum miliaceam) under Drought Stress Conditions Using AFLP Marker

The aim of this research was to identify marker loci associated with some agronomic traits under drought stress conditions in Common millet.
          

In this study, 30 genotypes of Common millet were planted as augmented design at research farm of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman in April 2016. In order to induce stress irrigation was stopped at 50% panicling stage. Traits including grain yield, biological yield, 1000- grain weight, number of grain in tiller, number of tiller in plant, panicle length, number of panicle branches, plant height, number of leaf in plant, leaf length, leaf width and harvest index were measured. The AFLP Technique was performed by the six EcoR1/Mse1 primer combinations.
         

In total, 246 polymorphic bands were generated and the average percentage polymorphic was 89.13%. Association analysis based on GLM and MLM model indicated that 52 and 64 markers associated to traits under drought stress condition, respectively. Among them, four markers (M4/E10-65, M4/E10-74, M4/E10-67 and M59/E36-105) with grain yield, three markers (M59/E36-84, M10/E1-244 and M10/E1-245) with 1000- grain weight, two markers (M59/E36-106 and M10/E1-224) with number of tiller in plant and five markers (M3/E2-31, M3/E2-35, M3/E2-38, M59/E36-114 and M4/E8-128) with number of grain in tiller showed highly significant and strong relationship under drought stress condition in both models.
         

In this study, several common genetic locations for the studied traits were identified. The existence of common markers between different traits may be due to pleiotropic effects or to linked genomic regions affecting several traits.