Genetic studies on the cultivation processes of common buckwheat

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The shatterring-nonshatterring habit of common buckwheat is controlled by a single locus (sht). The wild ancestor of common buckwheat, F. esculentum ssp. ancestrale is dominant homozygote Sht/Sht and cultivars are recessive homozygotes sht/sht and show the non-shattering habit. Since natural populations of the wild ancestor is heterostylous outcrossing, they maintain cultivation specific non-shattring allele sht at low frequency (the highest 3% in the Yanyuan population of Sichuan province). These non-shattering habit gene is believed to be utilized at the time of domestication. F. homodtropicum, another wild species closely related to common buckwheat, is a selffertilizing species, hence intuitively it seems to be domesticated more easily. However, this species does not maintain a non-shattering habit gene in populations, hence have not have a chance to be domesticated.AFLP analyses of cultivated and wild subspecies of common buckwheat revealed that the natural populations of the wild ancestor from eastern Tibet are most closely related to cultivated land races. This probably implies that eastern Tibet as well as northwestern Yunnan must be considered as a candidate of birth place of common buckwheat.