The aim of this study was to estimate the genetic diversity among accesses of P. urvillei of Departamento de Plantas Forrageiras e Agrometeorologia (DPFA) of the College of Agronomy - UFRGS and to evaluate their use in selection programs. Sixty four accesses from different cities of the Southern Region of Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana States) and from Argentine were analyzed by RAPD and SSR molecular markers. Ten primers of RAPD markers were used and resulted in 56 polymorphic bands and 11 groups in a dendrogram with average similarity 0.70. Seven primers were used for the SSR technique and resulted in 28 polymorphic bands and seven groups in a dendrogram with average similarity 0.66. Both markers were efficient on grouping the accesses collected across the Southern region. A large number of primers was required to generate additional polymorphic bands to get genomic fingerprints of similar individuals. The dendrograms obtained from this study provided significant information for designing crossing strategies of parental generations in breeding programs of P. urvillei.
