Abstract: In order to find the tightly linked diagnostic SSR (simple sequence repeat) marker on soybean LG related to the maturity genotype and further deduce the maturity genotype of Chinese varieties, 215 pairs of SSR marker were selected to analyze 23 soybean germplasms in China and 35 introduced maturity Near-Isogenic Lines from U.S.A. Among them, 125 SSR markers were polymorphic and 8 SSR markers were relative to the maturity genotype. In detail, on the Clark background, Satt229 tightly linked to E3/e3 maturity locus, five markers including Sct_010, Satt294, Satt247, Satt452, and Satt156 tightly linked to E4/e4 maturity locus; both on the Clark and Harosoy background, Satt071and Satt178 tightly linked to E7/e7 maturity locus. Anyway, considered the NILs in the Harosoy background, only two markers (Satt071and Satt178) could be used to deduce the genotype of soybean germplasms in China. Then the maturity genotype of 25 varieties from China was deduced. UPGMA clustering tree was constructed based on the molecular data of 8 SSR markers correlated to maturity gene, and there were four groups were clustered. The result showed that the materials with the same genetic background were clustered together. The materials with the Clark background were clearly different from those with the Harosoy background.

Key words: Soybean, Maturity, Near-Isogenic Lines, SSR markers