Assessment of Genetic Diversity of Finger Millet Blast Isolates in Tamil Nadu

Blast disease caused by Magnaporthe grisea is one of the major production constraints in finger millet. Fourteen M. grisea isolates collected from blast infected leaves and panicle from different locations of Tamil Nadu were subjected to randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis using 16 different random primers for assessing diversity. A total of 83 DNA fragments in the range of 200 to 2000 bp were amplified of which, 62 bands (74.7%) were polymorphic. Cluster analysis with unweighted pair group method of arithmetic averages (UPGMA) identified two main clusters.