Genetic diversity of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) from Cundinamarca, Colombia

Abstract

Chenopodium quinoa W. is a species of South America with an exceptional nutritional content and wide agroclimatological adaptation. It has great genetic and phenotypic variability, however in Colombia there are few genetic improvement programmes that take advantage of its great genetic and productive potential. In Cundinamarca there are some adapted genotypes which have been selected by farmers. We evaluated 36 genotypes of Blanca de Jericó, Blanca Subachoque, Aurora, Púrpura and Tunkahuan from Cundinamarca, using eight ISSR markers. The analysis by the coefficient of Nei-Li at the level of similarity of 0.40 divided the population into three groups according their background genetic and the colour of oxalates. The percentage of polymorphic loci was higher than 90%. The average value of heterozygosity was 0.32, which is low given the selection processes that the evaluated germplasm has undergone. We found moderate genetic differentiation (Fst = 0.23). The analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed higher variation (77%) groups than among groups (23%). The results revealed intra-population diversity, which suggests that farmers within their farms should undergo a more rigorous seed selection process. Our results demonstrate that ISSR markers are useful and powerful to assess the genetic relationships, polymorphism and genetic diversity of quinoa cultivars. The genetic characterization results reported in the present study will be promising for guiding the breeding of quinoa seed quality in Colombia.