Genetic Diversity and Genome-Wide Association Study for some agronomic traits in durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L.) Using whole genome DArTseq Markers

This research was conducted to study genetic diversity, population structure, linkage disequilibrium, and marker-trait relationship in durum wheat using DArTseq technology. Therefore, 94 durum wheat genotypes were evaluated in the form of augmented design with six repeated controls during the two cropping years, 2016–2017 and 2017–2018. Some Agronomic traits including the number of days to spike emergence, number of days to physiological maturity, plant height, thousand kernel weight, and grain yield were measured and recorded. The DNA samples were processed for DArTseq using the Genotyping by Sequencing (GBS) platform at Diversity Array Technology Pty, Ltd, Australia. The values of polymorphism information content (PIC) of SilicoDArT markers varied from 0.023 to 0.499 with an average of 0.38. The studied durum wheat genotypes were grouped into four separate groups based on the Bayesian model. LD analysis between A and B genomes showed that there is a high number of significant marker pairs (82052) in the B genome compared to the A genome (68885). In general, during two cropping years, 29 markers related to the studied traits were found, and out of these 29 related markers, 19 markers were identified in the first year and 10 markers were identified in the second year. The results revealed that the DArTseq markers are a very powerful tool for evaluating the genetic diversity and population structure of durum wheat genotypes and can be used in genotype screening as breeding parents and marker-assisted selection in breeding programs.