Brachiaria (Urochloa spp., syn. Brachiaria spp.) is an important forage grass widely used in tropical and subtropical countries. The ILRI genebank maintains more than 581 accessions from 19 different species within the Urochloa genus, with the largest collection being that of U. brizantha (254 accessions), U. mosambicensis (64 accessions), and U. decumbens (59 accessions), respectively.
The collections genotyped by the DArTseq platform and genome-wide high-density SNP and SilicoDArT markers were generated, of which 51% of the SNPs and 39% of the SilicoDArTs were mapped onto the U. ruziziensis genome. Using selected genome-wide SNP markers, 10 U. decumbens accessions were identified as core-subset representing the genetic diversity of the species collection held in the genebank. This subset is of a manageable size and could be used as a reference representative set for distribution and evaluation in different agro-ecologies.