Abstract:

Cotton plant is an important crop cultivated under biotic and abiotic stress conditions worldwide. The best way to avoid the harmful effects of chemicals used to combat these stresses is to develop tolerant or resistant varieties in plant breeding programs. In the present study, some of Upland cotton varietieswerescreened with 20 polymorphic SSR primers, and their population structure and genetic diversity analysis were examined. 17 SSR primers amplified 99 alleles with a 5.82 allele per locus. The mean PIC value of the markers was 0.312. The highest PIC value (0.491) belongs to the Nau3736 SSR marker while Bnl1611 and Bnl3449 markers had the lowest PIC value (0.105). The Genetic Distance (GD) values of the markers varied between 0.26and 1.09. The highest GD values were between Sure Grow 96 and Carmen, Sealand-542 and Siokra ¼, and between Sphinx V and Stoneville-453 cultivars. As a result, the genetically distantcultivars (Acala maxxa, Carmen, Aleppo 40, Siokra ¼, and Tex) can be recommended to use as parents in Marker-assisted selection (MAS) technology to develop new cotton varieties which are resistant or tolerant to stress factors.

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