Genetic Diversity and Parentage Analysis Among F ₁ Mapping Population of Pomegranate Using Hyper‐Variable SSR Markers

This articles deals with genetic diversity and parentage analysis (Bhagwa × Daru‐17), among 70 F 1 progenies using 17 hyper variable simple sequence repeats (SSR) primers. These markers yielded 49 alleles with an average of 2.29 alleles per marker. The average polymorphic information content (PIC; 0.49) and Shannon information index (0.73) indicated a high genetic diversity level in the F 1 offsprings. Out of 17 SSRs, ten markers showed high PIC values > 0.5, i.e., HvSSR9, HvSSR12, HvSSRT413, HvSSRT408, HvSSRT868, HvSSRT259, HvSSRT298, HvSSRT465, HvSSRT609, and HvSSRT605. The fixation index of <0 for most of the SSR markers (13) indicated that F 1 population was influenced by more hybrid offspring. The average self‐pollination rates observed was 28.3%, which indicated a limited influence of natural pollination and higher rate of hybridization in F 1 population. Through parent–child relationships statistical analysis assuming known and unknown parental conditions for F 1 population, we observed highly comparable average nonexclusion rate (69%) and cumulative exclusion rate (68%) proving statistical power to detect right parent suspects. Unweighted pair group method with arithmetic average, principal coordinate analysis, and STRUCTURE analysis grouped all the offsprings into two distinct clusters. This diversity and parentage analysis have reconfirmed the parents and identified highly diverse F 1 offspring's that could be exploited as promising donors for future crop improvement programs in pomegranate.