Sesame (
Sesamum indicum
d 46.4% for landraces and cultivars, respectively, indicates that both landraces and cultivars are line mixtures and segregants of past outcrossing results. A Neighbour-Joining dendrogram based on Modified Rogers' Distances (MRD) and a principal coordinate analysis based on a simple dissimilarity matrix, points towards some grouping based on geographical origin. The established SSR markers will be very useful for further diversity analyses among a large landrace collection of Ethiopian sesame and in the establishment of a core collection. Moreover, existence of great genetic variability between the landraces is a good starting point of sesame crop improvement programs in Ethiopia.