Agro-morphological and genetic variability analysis in oat germplasms with special emphasis on food and feed

PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Agro-morphological and genetic variability analysis in oat germplasms with special emphasis on food and feed Raj Kumar1☯, Smriti Varghese1☯, Deepanshu Jayaswal ID2*, Kuldip Jayaswall2*, Kuldeep Yadav1, Gaurav Mishra1, R. P. Vyas1, H. C. Singh1, H. G. Prakash1, Arvind Nath Singh2, Sanjay Kumar2 1 Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur, India, 2 ICAR-Indian Institute of Seed Science, Mau, U.P., India a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Kumar R, Varghese S, Jayaswal D, Jayaswall K, Yadav K, Mishra G, et al. (2023) Agromorphological and genetic variability analysis in oat germplasms with special emphasis on food and feed. PLoS ONE 18(2): e0280450. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0280450 Editor: Tzen-Yuh Chiang, National Cheng Kung University, TAIWAN Received: October 25, 2022 Accepted: January 2, 2023 Published: February 8, 2023 Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process; therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. The editorial history of this article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280450 Copyright: © 2023 Kumar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. * (DJ); (KJ) Abstract The gaining attention of underutilized oat crops for both food and feed, mining of quality and yield related genes/QTLs from available germplasms of oat is need of the hour. The large family of grasses has a vast number of germplasms that could be harnessed for bio-prospecting. The selection of cross-compatible oat germplasms by molecular markers could be used for the introgression of the novel traits into the elite background of oats. The process needs a thorough study of genetic diversity to see the evolutionary relatedness among germplasms. Considering this, in the present study, the genetic diversity of 38 oat germplasms with 12 agro-morphological traits was carried out using 22 Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) markers. We found a high level of polymorphism and 158 distinctive alleles; on average 7.18 alleles per primer, further, high-yielding genotypes were identified with the help of phenotypic data and genetic diversity was analyzed by using DNA fingerprint-based principal component analysis, UPGMA dendrogram. Among these 38 germplasms; eight were identified as superior under high grain yield (OS-424, OS-403, NDO-1101, OL-10, UPO-212, OS-405, OS-6, and OS-346) and another eight germplasms were identified as superior for the high fresh weight (for fodder purpose, NDO-711, RO-19, OL-14, OL-1760/ OL-11, NDO-10, UPO-212, UPO-06-1, and RO-11-1). These results suggest that germplasms that are closely related (Cross-compatible) and have good potential for desirable traits could be used for varietal development by using marker-assisted selection. Introduction Oats hold the sixth rank in the world cereal production statistics after wheat, maize, rice, barley, and sorghum. The common oat (Avena sativa L.) is a cereal cum fodder crop grown primarily for its green fodder and grains. It is rich in antioxidants such as α-tocotrienol, α- tocopherol, avenanthramides, and total dietary fiber including the soluble fiber β-glucan [1]. Oat has gained much attention owing to its higher nutritional value, excellent health functions, and gluten-free property [2]. Grain quality and yield with several grain characteristics are routinely used to define milling PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280450 February 8, 2023 1 / 11 PLOS ONE Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Importance of oat germplasms for food and feed security quality [3]. Developing new oat varieties that combine high yield, β-glucan content and high great content is an obstacle, such that improvement in one trait tends to be accompanied by a reduction in others [4]. Oats face several biotic and abiotic constraints which drastically affect their fodder and grain yield. Serious diseases like crown rust [5], smut [6], stem rust [7], cold weather, low soil pH, and variation in nutrient and health conditions of the soil affect production of oats. Cultivars with an improved yield capability that can be also grown at higher elevations than the current climatic limits for arable agriculture could relieve some of the overgrazing pressures and destruction of forests. As the available land currently used for food production becomes scarce with the increasing population, and the need for greater food production increases, hence, more research is needed to develop special-purpose forage cultivars that fit specific end uses. There are few oat breeding programs where the primary objective is developing oats for forage, and very little work is underway to develop germplasm for conditions like the cool and high altitude regions found in the parts of the Himalayas. A point at issue is to consider the potential for quantum leaps in oat cultivar performance where the oat crop is a mandated food crop of an International Agriculture Research Centre, such as the International Center for Agricultural Research or the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. It would provide potential spin-offs by providing the basis for smaller oat breeding operators to develop germplasm specifically for grain, forage and fodder uses, including lowering the temperature threshold at which oat germplasm can grow, and producing higher yields of forage and fodder for livestock uses in cool regions [8]. Biochemical markers were used to study genetic diversity and relationships before the 1980s when molecular markers were unknown. Furthermore, the discovery of molecular markers has simplified the examination of genetic variation. Since molecular markers are more trustworthy and accurate than other marker systems, they are widely employed for genetic diversity analyses, phylogenetic investigations, and cultivar identification. Genetic polymorphisms in the cultivated Avena sativa L. are very low as a result of continuous selective breeding for crop improvement, therefore marker-assisted selection (MAS) and marker-assisted breeding (MAB) could play a key role in the production of new varieties. Genetic diversity study using multiple molecular markers in diverse crops has been done efficiently for many years [9–13]. Montilla et al., 2013 [14], had studied the vast number of oat accessions by using simple sequence repeat (SSR) and expre (...truncated)