Assessment of Genetic Diversity of French Bean Using SSR Primers

French bean is one of the important leguminous vegetables grown for its tender pods either for fresh consumption or for its dried seeds as 'Rajma'. In the present study SSR molecular markers were used to evaluate the genetic diversity in ten varieties of French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) germplasm accessions obtained from NBPGR, New Delhi. Various morphological characters and quantitative traits were recorded. Among the ten accessions, six accessions said to possess the genes which relate to all five SSR primers. Out of five SSR primers, two primers Bmd9 and Bmd16 show bands in all ten French bean germplasm. Cluster analysis shows that ten genotypes are grouped in two clusters. The purpose of this SSR analysis is to facilitate the construction of SSR based genetic linkage maps in French bean.