Intra-specific variation in West African and Asian germplasm of okra (Abelmoschus spp L.)

Ten quantitative agromorpho-economic traits, six inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) primers, and three sequenced regions were employed to study intra-specific genetic diversity among twenty-eight accessions of West African and Asian okra (Abelmoschus spp L.) collected from eight geographical regions of Ghana. Pod yield per plant was analysed as dependent variable in relation to other agromorpho-economic traits, showing the correlation and contribution of each trait to crop yield. 50% germination and flowering were the most significant traits followed by plant height and average seeds per plant. Principal coordinate analysis defined three sets of traits, while Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC) defined three clusters of the germplasms. ISSR detected very low level of polymorphism among the accessions. Testing the correlation between molecular data and morphological traits using Mantel test showed a significant positive correlation (r-value = 0.71, 0.90) with 50% flowering, fruiting and number of leaves per plant. Eclectic variation between Indiana and the rest of the accessions for both agromorpho-economic traits and molecular markers affirms its potential usefulness as a source of diverse genes for future breeding programmes. Sequencing of regions from all accessions, suggests that they are identical with a common ancestry. Outcomes of this study is timely for an ongoing okra hybridisation programme in Ghana.