## 4 Discussion
### Genetic Diversity of Chicory in the Kashmir Region  
The evaluation of genetic differences utilizing molecular markers will help in the analysis of selection procedures and conservation of a sufficient amount of genetic variation for the selection of breeding programs [73]. Therefore, the genetic diversity of chicory growing in various agro-climatic zones across the Kashmir region was evaluated using ISSR-based DNA markers. In the present study, the total percentage of polymorphism was found to be 67.44% across accessions and the data revealed that groups of accessions of chicory collected from Baramulla (CIN-BM) showed the lowest frequency of percentage polymorphic bands (31.40%), whereas the group of accessions collected from Pulwama (CIN-PU) exhibited the highest frequency of percentage polymorphic bands (68.60%) with an average PPB of 47.51%, indicating the high level of genetic variation in chicory. Moreover, a significant level of polymorphism was found within the group of accessions (54.1%) and among the groups of accession (45.9%) in the species collected from the different geographical locations under study. This was expected since the ISSR markers amplify microsatellite regions that exhibit significant polymorphism [74] and the promising outcome in the present investigation is due to the use of many randomly selected pre-screened highly informative primers. Using SRAP markers, [PERSON] et al. [75] showed that the geographic structure also contributes to genetic differentiation within a species. Our results are also in agreement with [PERSON] et al. [52], who observed a high level of genetic diversity within and among the groups of accessions of _Phaselous vulgaris_; [PERSON] et al. [76] in _Ziziphusspina-christi_; [PERSON] et al. [77] in _Saccharum_ species; and [PERSON] et al. [78] in _Abelmoschus esculentus_ collected from diverse locations using ISSR markers. Moreover, a recent study was conducted by [PERSON] [79] using RAPD and ISSR markers in _Silybum marianum_, concluding that both the markers revealed a high degree of polymorphism, which varied between samples from distinct sites. In the current study, the high level of polymorphism might be due to the differences in the agro-climatic conditions and the type of propagation of the plant, which might have induced some variations in the population at the genetic level. [PERSON]'s genetic diversity (\(H\)) and Shannon's information indices (\(I\)) were lowest for the Baramulla (CIN-BM) group of accessions (\(H\) = 0.155 \(\pm\) 0.019; \(I\) = 0.173 \(\pm\) 0.028) and highest for the Pulwama (CIN-PU) group of accessions (\(H\) = 0.222 \(\pm\) 0.018; \(I\) = 0.343 \(\pm\) 0.027). The values of [PERSON]'s genetic diversity (\(H\)) and Shannon information indices (\(I\)) for the species are indicative of the existence of significant genetic polymorphism in the species. It was also observed that although the majority of the diversity was distributed within groups of accessions (54.1%), a significant amount also existed among the groups as indicated by the \(G_{ST}\) value of 0.459 (\(H_{T}\) = 0.296, \(H_{S}\) = 0.160). According to [PERSON]'s [46], \(G_{ST}\) is classified as low when G\({}_{ST}\) < 0.05, medium when the \(G_{ST}\) value is between 0.05 and 0.15, and high when \(G_{ST}\) > 0.15. Thus, the \(G_{ST}\) (coefficient of genetic differentiation) coefficient of chicory (\(G_{ST}\) = 0.459) is considered high. The _Cichorium_ species also had a gene flow (\(Nm\)) value less than 1 (\(Nm\) = 0.589), with \(Nm\) < 1 indicating local differentiation of populations while \(Nm\) > 1 is evidence of little differentiation among populations [80], indicating that our sampled populations were subjected to genetic drift and the high genetic differentiation within populations may be caused by the outcrossing pollination phenomenon and altitudinal variations. Our results are in agreement with [PERSON] et al. [81] and [PERSON] and [PERSON] [82], who found \(G_{ST}\) and \(Nm\) values < 1 in _Liriodendron chintense_ and _Lilium cernuum_, respectively.