Genetic diversity analysis of Ethiopian ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) accessions using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers

Understanding the existing genetic variation in the production system’s germplasm pool is the first step in any program aimed at improving crop genetic diversity. Regardless of its economic and sociocultural values in Ethiopia, the lack of research attention on ginger has limited its ability to improve genetically. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the genetic diversity among 100 ginger accessions collected from different agro-ecologies by using 12 polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The polymorphism rate indicated that 97.2% of bands are polymeric out of the 139 distinct bands produced across all loci. The result also showed an average of 3.64 different alleles (Na), 1.53 number of effective alleles (Ne), and 0.55 Shannon information index (I). The observed heterozygosity was 0.13, and the expected heterozygosity was 0.28. Analysis of molecular variance revealed a 4% variation between populations and a 96% variation within populations. The 100 accessions were grouped into three clusters based on population structure analysis. Phylogenetic tree analysis has created three major tree branches and identified a significant number of identical duplicates. The experiment suggested that there might be potential markers associated with high rhizome yield and disease tolerance, but more research is necessary to confirm this. The experiment’s findings can serve as a foundation for Ethiopia’s efforts to improve the genetic conservation and improvement of ginger.