Genetic Diversity Analysis of Ethiopian Yam (Dioscorea spp) from Different Geographic Origin Using Simple Sequence Repeat

Yam (Dioscorea spp L.) is one of root and tuber crops grown in Ethiopia as source of food and income. It is cultivated mainly in south, southwest, and western part of the country. Two hundred ten yam accessions from ten different geographic origins of major growing areas of the country were used in this study. The sprouted tubers of some accessions were received from research centers where others were directly collected from farmers’ fields during early March, 2010. The collected yam genotypes were planted in complete randomized block design at two research sites (namely at Hawasa and Wonago) which are found under South Agricultural Research Institute in the end of April 2010. All important cultural practices such as staking, weeding and irrigation were done starting from planting till harvesting. Yam leaf samples with of different origin were observed separately using twenty SSR markers. A similarity matrix derived UPGMA cluster analysis based on geographical sites showed nine distinct clustering groups which indicated presence of relationship between genetic distances to that of geographical distance in most of clustering groups. These cluster grouping is supported by Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA) that indicated presence of significance genetic variation of 210 yam accessions within and among ten collection sites.