Genetic diversity analysis on agronomic characteristics of oat germplasms
The genetic diversity of 54 domestic and oversea oat germplasms were analyzed in this study and their ge-netic relationships were further concluded ,providing the theoretical basis for rational use of oat varieties (lines ) and po-tential improvement of oat breeding .The results showed that substantial genetic diversity was discovered among the 54 germplasm resources .Among the five quality traits (grain color ,kernel shape ,spike type ,micro-spike type ,and resis-tance)investigated ,the diversity index of resistance scored the highest ,while that of grain color was the lowest .For the eight quantitative traits (plant tiller number ,spikelet number ,plant height ,ear length ,panicle number ,seed number per plant ,seed weight per plant ,1000-grain weight ) ,the genetic diversity index of seed weight per-plant was the highest and its variation coefficient reached themaximum .In addition ,the eight accessions from the 54 oat germplasms could be classified into four categories by cluster analysis .The first group could be used as parents of breeding materials for high-stem and great-grain type .The second group could be used as parents of short-plant breeding materials .The third group could be used as parents of multi-trait breeding because there were no clear beneficial traits observed .The fourth group could be used as parents of breeding materials for additional panicle and spikelet numbers .