Genetic diversity of the floury race of maize Avati Morotî from the Guaraní tribe in Paraguay

Avati Morotî is a race of floury maize widely used by the Guarani people in South America, whose variability and potential value for breeding has been neglected so far. The objective of this research was to explore the genetic variability within the main Paraguayan race Avati Morotî. We studied the genetic variability available in the 20 accessions of Paraguayan Avati Morotî included in the South American core collection made by CIMMYT. Thirty individuals per accession were genotyped with 30 SSR (simple sequence repeat); we determined genetic diversity and made a cluster analysis in order to define genetic relationships among accessions. Mean of polymorphic loci (0.96), alleles per locus (3.57), alleles per polymorphic locus (3.65), expected (0.48) and observed (0.43) heterozygosity, and coefficient of consanguinity (0.12) revealed that Avati Morotî contains a genetic diversity comparable to the most variable maize races of maize. The cluster analysis classified the 20 populations in eight groups, five of them with a single accession, and a large group representing a central pool of germplasm. These results indicate that there is a large variability available in this race, and encourage the collection of more samples of Avati Morotî, particularly in marginal areas that were scarcely sampled