## 3 Results
### Genetic Diversity Analysis
[PERSON]'s diversity index-based analysis provided information about the total species diversity (\(H_{T}\)), with an estimated value of 0.296, and the mean diversity within accessions (\(H_{S}\)), with an estimated value of 0.160 as shown in Table 5. The proportion of diversity among the accessions (\(G_{ST}\)), also referred to as the coefficient of genetic differentiation, was estimated to be 0.459, suggesting that 45.9% of the genetic variability was distributed among the chicory accessions. The latter comprised a proportion of 0.541 of the total diversity, i.e., 54.1% of the total diversity was contributed within the accessions. A high level of genetic differentiation was also confirmed with a low level of gene flow (\(Nm\) = 0.589) (Table 6). AMOVA revealed comparable results, with 56% of the variation present within the accessions of chicory, which was statistically significant at \(p\) < 0.01, whereas 44% of the total molecular variance was observed among the accessions as shown in Table 7.  
The \(F_{ST}\) distance among the groups of accessions ranged from 0.285 (between CIN-AN and CIN-PU) to 0.698 (between CIN-BM and CIN-GA) as depicted in Table 8. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{\(H_{T}\)} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Proportion of Diversity**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Proportion of Diversity**} & \multirow{2}{*}{
\begin{tabular}{c} **Gene Flow** \\ **(_Nm_)** \\ \end{tabular} } \\  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**\(H_{S}\)**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**within Groups**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**among Groups of**} \\  & & **of Accessions** & **Accessions (\(G_{ST}\))** & \\ \hline
0.296 & 0.160 & 0.541 & 0.459 & 0.589 \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{4}{l}{(\(H_{T}\))—total species genetic diversity, (\(H_{S}\))—intra-specific genetic diversity, \(G_{ST}\)—coefficient of genetic differentiation, (\(Nm\))—gene flow.} \\ \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 6: [PERSON]’s estimates of total genetic diversity, intra-specific genetic diversity, the proportion of diversity within and among the accessions, and the degree of gene flow in \(C\). _intybus_. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Source of Variation**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Df**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**SS**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**MSD**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**VC**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**\% Variation**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\(p\)**} \\ \hline Among groups of accessions & 6 & 321.138 & 53.523 & 6.470 & 44 & \textless{}0.01 \\ Within groups of accessions & 43 & 348.342 & 8.101 & 8.101 & 56 & \textless{}0.01 \\ \hline Total & 49 & 669.480 & & 14.571 & 100 & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 7: Analysis of the molecular variance (AMOVA) for the accessions of \(C\). _intybus_. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Accessions** & **PPB\%** & ***\(H\) (mean)** & ***\(I\) (mean)** & ***\(H\) (SE)** & ***\(I\) (SE)** \\ \hline CIN-BD & 56.98 & 0.159 & 0.254 & 0.017 & 0.026 \\ CIN-BM & 31.40 & 0.115 & 0.173 & 0.019 & 0.028 \\ CIN-AN & 47.67 & 0.177 & 0.265 & 0.021 & 0.031 \\ CIN-SR & 38.37 & 0.136 & 0.206 & 0.020 & 0.029 \\ CIN-GA & 45.35 & 0.144 & 0.223 & 0.019 & 0.028 \\ CIN-PU & 68.60 & 0.222 & 0.343 & 0.018 & 0.027 \\ CIN-BU & 44.19 & 0.165 & 0.246 & 0.021 & 0.031 \\ \hline Mean & 47.51 & 0.160 & 0.244 & 0.007 & 0.011 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 5: Percentage polymorphic bands (PPBs), [PERSON]’s genetic diversity (\(H\)), and [PERSON]’s information indices (\(l\)) for ISSR in \(C\). _intybus_ L.  
The DARwin program was used to construct the principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and UPGMA hierarchical dendrogram. On the PCoA plot, genetically differentiated chicory accessions are grouped along the coordinate axes (Figure 5). Accessions collected from Budgam and Ganderbal showed greater dispersion compared to the accessions collected from other districts. However, accessions collected from the Srinagar district showed lesser dispersion and grouped together along the axes system.