Abstract:Seventy-nine SSR primers with high polymorphisms and abundant information were used to detect genetic diversity of the total 87 winter wheat cultivars, including 85 cultivars authorized in Hebei province, and the two control cultivars used in the regional test of China for drought-resistant wheat variety, Jinmai 47 and Luohan 2. A total of 175 allelic variation loci were detected in 79 SSR primers, ranging from 1 to 6 per primer pair with an average of 2.215. The polymorphism information content (PIC) ranged from 0.824 to 0.998, with an average of 0.941. The effective number of alleles for each locus (Ne) varied from 1.644 to 20.333, with an average of 4.708. The Shannon-weaver diversity index, also referred to as Shannon-Weiner index (H’) ranged from 0.148 to 1.102 and averaged 0.544. These indicated that genetic diversity of 87 tested cultivars was low based on SSR markers. The genetic similarity coefficients (GS) varied from 0.184 to 0.899, with an average of 0.418. Among them, the GS (0.899) between Henong 826 and Shijiazhuang 8 was the highest, but the GS (0.184) between 71-3 and Gaoyou 9618 is the lowest. The GS averages were different among the cultivars released from different breeders. The UPGMA cluster indicated that genetic difference was high between the cultivars from Shijiazhuang New Wheat Variety and Technology Research Institute and those from other breeders.