Abstract
The morphology, yield and grain quality of Tartary buckwheat were evaluated in the field in the Kyushu and Kanto areas for two years, and the difference from those of common buckwheat was discussed. The range of year-to-year variation of the morphological characters, such as plant height, main stem length, number of nodes and number of primary branches were slight, but that of productivity, such as total weight and grain yield were large. However, these characters varied with the variety, and the order of the values of each character was the same in both years. Consequently, it seemed that these characters are useful as the indicators of varietal characteristics. Furthermore, it was indicated that the varieties with a large size and high growing capacities are advantageous to obtain high grain yield. It was also indicated that the response of these characters to sowing time varied with the variety. The rutin content of Tartary buckwheat grains was more the 100-fold that of common buckwheat, while the antioxidative activity of Tartary buckwheat grains was about 3-4 fold that of common buckwheat. It was suggested that Tartary buckwheat differs from common buckwheat in the content of antioxidative compounds.
