Evaluation location: Oregon, United States
The European hazelnut, Corylus avellana L., is the species of commerce and has been used as a food source by humans since prehistoric times. The objective of this study was to use 21 SSR loci to evaluate genetic diversity in 270 accessions of European hazelnut representing a wide geographic range from the USDA-ARS NCGR National collection and from the OSU hazelnut breeding collection. We also wanted to validate suspected duplicates, and investigate the parentage of some accessions. Of the 270 accessions, 198 had unique fingerprints while 72 were duplicates, as suspected based on identical morphology and incompatibility alleles. SSR alleles indicate the parentage of 31 accessions. The identification of duplicate and mislabeled accessions will improve management of the hazelnut germplasm collection. The results of this study were published in Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 56(2): 147-172.