Date of Award

Winter 2024

Project Type

Thesis

Program or Major

Genetics

Degree Name

Master of Science

First Advisor

Iago Hale

Second Advisor

Zachary Stansell

Third Advisor

Anna O'Brien

Abstract

AbstractTartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) is a promising underutilized crop in the context of New England’s rapidly changing environment (USDA NH State Profile, 2022). Despite substantive prior work on the genetics and nutrition of Tartary buckwheat (Zhang et al., 2017b), many practical questions pertaining to its potential cultivation in New England remain unanswered. This thesis presents the first systematic genotypic and phenotypic screening of the USDA National Plant Germplasm System's (NPGS) Tartary buckwheat germplasm collection in an effort to lay the foundations for future crop improvement efforts. The genotypic assessment of the NPGS Tartary buckwheat germplasm was completed by first bottlenecking each accession. Then each bottlenecked line was sampled and genotyped using reduced-representation genotyping-by-sequencing reads aligned to the F. tataricum cv. 'Pinku41' reference genome (Zhang, et al., 2017). Genotyped accessions were clustered using a UPGMA clustering algorithm to inspect population sub-structure, finding nine distinct subpopulations that echoed known provenance data. The phenotypic assessment of the collection was completed over two field seasons (2023 and 2024). Each accession was grown under field conditions in small plots and scored for days to flowering, thousand seed weight, and shattering. Using these metrics and the population information generated in the genotyping analysis, promising accessions from the highest performing subpopulations were recommended as parents for crosses.

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