Abstract

Vietnam's indigenous waxy maize varieties are highly diverse in types, colours, and genetic makeup, with strong adaptability and resilience. A collection of these indigenous waxy corn varieties has been gathered and preserved at the Maize Research Institute and the Plant Resources Center, comprising 200 varieties, primarily originating from northern provinces. In this research, a total of 54 SSR primers were analysed across a set of 200 waxy maize varieties, of which 21 produced polymorphic alleles. The analysis yielded 104 allele types, with an average of 4.95 alleles per SSR primer. The average Polymorphism Information Content (PIC) of the 21 polymorphic primers is 0.55. Based on genetic distance among varieties, the collected Vietnamese waxy maize can be divided into 6 subgroups. In addition, agronomic traits related to yield, such as plant height, dry weight, cultivation duration, ear length, and ear diameter also showed differences among the six genetic groups of Vietnamese waxy maize.