ASSOCIATION MAPPING OF GERMINATION AND SOME EARLY SEEDLING STAGE TRAITS OF A TURKISH ORIGIN OAT COLLECTION

Abstract

In recent years, oat plant especially for hay yield is on demand in Turkey. In this study, 167 oat landraces originated from Turkey were evaluated for germination and some early seedling stage traits and genotyped by 6K SNP Chip assay to detect candidate markers using association mapping analysis. Principal component analysis (PCA) were also performed to determine relationships among investigated traits.
 The variation in local oat genotypes for germination and other investigated traits was found significant at the 5% significance level, except for germination rate (GR). The values for germination rate was found between 52-76% and 52-100% for germination ratio, while 12.33 to 45 mm for coleoptile length and 8 to 21 mm for radicle length. On the other hand, plumula length varied between 2 to 28.45 mm and 1301.33 to 5494.40 for seed vigor index. 
 In the research, PC1 and PC2 value was found 41.5% and 21.5%, respectively, explaining the 63% of the total variation. Germination rate and germination ratio (GP) were positively and significantly correlated with the other investigated traits.
 According to the results of the association mapping analysis a total number of 43 candidate markers were observed, 10 candidate markers for germination rate, five candidate markers for germination ratio (GP), five markers for radicle length (RL), eight markers for coleoptile length (CL), seven markers for plumula length (PL) and eight markers for seed vigor index (SVI).
 These candidate markers identified in this study for germination and early seedling stage traits could be used in future studies.