Genetic Diversity of U.S. Cotton Cultivars Using Microsatellite Markers

Establishing genetic diversity is essential for the germplasm enhancement and genomic analysis in crop improvement programs. We characterized genetic relationships of 384 upland cotton cultivars, representing breeding programs from across the U.S. cotton belt. Genotyping was done with 120 SSR markers using high-resolution capillary-based SSR genotyping. SSR marker sequences were obtained from Cotton Marker Database and a minimum of four markers per chromosome were selected. The structure of genetic diversity of elite upland cultivars in the form of phylogenetic tree and the genetic relationships of the cotton cultivars using marker data will be presented.