Evaluation location: Washington, United States
The USDA Western Regional Plant Introduction Station in Pullman, WA maintains >6800 pea accessions including three species, genetic stocks and several core collections. The biodiversity held in this germplasm fuels advances in the plant sciences, particularly breeding and genetics in the pursuit of crop improvement. Efficient germplasm management is crucial and molecular characterization using 15 SSRs of the USDA pea core collection of 310 accessions assists utilization. Understanding the genetic diversity (population structure) of the highly phenotyped USDA pea core collection led to significant marker-trait associations. The results of this study were published in Genes & Genomics 34(3): 305-320.
For a .xls file of the SSR data