EVALUATION OF GENETIC DIVERSITY PRESENT IN PEA (PISUM SATIVUM L.) GERMPLASM BASED ON MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS, RESISTANCE TO POWDERY MILDEW AND MOLECULAR CHARACTERISTICS

In order to investigate the genetic diversity present in the pea germplasm provided by IBGRI, NARC, Islamabad, 153 local and exotic genotypes were analyzed for 27 morphological traits, resistance to powdery mildew, and at molecular level using SDS-PAGE. The data was analyzed by descriptive statistics which reveal considerable extent of diversity and he association among different traits was estimated by Correlation analysis. Most of the morphological traits showed significant variance, and only 12 accessions were found resistant to powdery mildew. Correlation analysis showed high significant positive correlation among different important agro economic traits. SDS-PAGE results showed comparatively significant variation in major bands although significant variations in minor bands were there. Cluster analysis (Ward's method) carried out separately for morphological and SDS-PAGE data divide the whole germplasm into two major groups in respect of phylogenetic or pedigree relationship, sorting centers of origin, genetic diversity and similarity.