Comparison of Plant Morphology, Yield and Nutritional Quality of Fagopyrum esculentum and Fagopyrum tataricum Grown under Field Conditions in Belgium

Buckwheat is a pseudocereal with high nutritional and nutraceutical properties. Although common buckwheat ( ) is the main cultivated species, Tartary buckwheat ( ) is gaining interest. In this paper, we compared plant growth, yield-related parameters and seed nutritional qualities of two varieties of and under field conditions in Belgium. flowered earlier, produced less nodes, less branches, less inflorescences, but more flowers per inflorescence than . The yield was higher in , while the thousand-grain weight was higher in . Yield ranged between 2037 kg/ha and 3667 kg/ha depending on the species and year. Regarding nutritional qualities, seeds of contained more proteins (15.4% vs. 12.8%) than seeds of although their amino acid profile was similar. Seeds of contained also more Mg (1.36 vs. 1.15 mg/g dry weight (DW)) and less Fe (22.9 vs. 32.6 µg/g DW) and Zn (19.6 vs. 24.5 µg/g DW) than . The main difference between seed nutritional quality was the concentration of flavonoids that was 60 times higher in than in . Both species grow well under Belgian conditions and showed good seed quality.