Introduction Panicum miliaceum L., most commonly named proso millet and broomcorn millet, is a member of the small millets group, which together with P. miliaceum encompasses six cereal crops: foxtail millet (Setaria italica L. Beauv), kodo millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum Michx.), finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.), little millet (Panicum sumatrense Rothex. Roem. and Schultz), and barnyard millet (Echinochloa spp.) (Goron and Raizada, 2015). According to CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research; http://www.cgiar.org/), proso millet has a 30% share of global millet production. Proso millet is grown for the production of small seeds, which are used as animal fodder and for human consumption (Habiyaremye et al., 2017b). P. miliaceum is a minor cereal today in terms of global economic importance, yet it is a very important food source among some of the world's poorest sections, especially for people living in hot and dry areas in developing and underdeveloped countries (Wang et al., 2016). Proso millet is one of the world's oldest cultivated cereals. It appeared as a staple crop in northern China 10,000 years ago (Lu et al., 2009), and later spread to other parts of the world, including Slovene territory where it was grown as early as 1000 BC by the Celts (Ačko, 2012). Although Slovenia is a small mid-European country (≈20 000 km 2 and ≈2 million inhabitants), proso millet was an essential dish for five centuries from the Middle Ages, when Slovene farmers consumed millet porridge on a daily basis (Ačko, 2012). Proso millet can be described by some outstanding useful characteristics. Regarding favored nutritional traits, protein content (12.5%) is the highest among all small millets, and even higher than in the major cereals, rice and wheat (Saha et al., 2016). Furthermore, proso millet is gluten-free, which makes it appropriate for gluten-intolerant people. A few reports have revealed the medicinal benefits of consuming proso millet, e.g., lowering cholesterol and phytate, inhibiting certain cancers, preventing heart and liver diseases, and managing liver dysfunctions and diabetes (Zhang et al., 2014). Proso millet also has lots of favored agronomic traits. It belongs to the grain crops which have extremely low water requirements. The reason for its drought tolerance is its short growing season, being mature within 60-90 days (Baltensperger, 1996). In addition, it can grow well in different poor soils, even with minimal agronomic input (Sabir et al., 2011). Landraces have huge economic value for local cultivation because of adaptation to the agro-Abstract: Proso millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) has many favored nutritional and agronomic traits, which makes it appropriate for cultivation and consumption all around the world. Genomic resources for proso millet are still very limited but the set of genomic data is improving. In this study, we genotyped six Slovenian landraces of proso millet (P. miliaceum L.) along with one Slovene autochthonous cultivar, Sonček. The chosen set of 11 SSR ...
