Common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) and Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum Gaertn.) are two minor crops. However, their significance has been growing in recent years. Understanding the diversity and genetic structure of genetic resources is crucial for their conservation and utilization in breeding programs. Here, we genotyped selected accessions of common and Tartary buckwheat using microsatellite markers from the gene bank at the Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana. Most of the accessions were local populations, a few were foreign accessions and standard varieties. We used PCR to test 31 microsatellite markers in both species. 17 markers successfully amplified fragments in common buckwheat and 22 markers in Tartary buckwheat. Out of 10 selected markers, 6 exhibited variability in common buckwheat, while in Tartary buckwheat, 8 out of 11 selected markers were variable. The transferability rate of markers was 31.5%. We evaluated capillary electrophoresis results with GeneMapper software. We used Cervus software to calculate variability parameters for the polymorphic markers. Average number of alleles per accession was 27,2 and 10,3 in common and Tartary buckwheat, respectively. Average PIC (Polymorphic Information Content) value for common and Tartary buckwheat was 0,678 and 0,394, respectively. All variability parameters were higher for common buckwheat than Tartary buckwheat. We used DARwin software to construct dendrograms depicting phylogenetic relationships among samples. Additionally, we used factorial analysis to assess variability and grouping of accessions. In common buckwheat we observed very high variability within accessions and low genetic differentiation between accessions. In Tartary buckwheat we observed low variability within accessions and high genetic differentiation among accessions. For future research we recommend using a larger set of polymorphic markers that will allow for a more precise determination of phylogenetic relationships among the accessions and their variability.
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