Abstract
Flag leaves, plant height (PH), and spike-related traits are key determinants contributing to yield potential in wheat. In this study, we developed a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population with 94 lines derived from the cross between ‘AS985472’ and ‘Sumai 3.’ A genetic map spanned 3553.69 cM in length were constructed using 1978 DArT markers. Severn traits including flag leaf width (FLW), flag leaf length (FLL), PH, anthesis date (AD), spike length (SL), spikelet number spike (SNS), and spike density (SD) were evaluated against this RIL population under three different environments. Combined phenotypic data and genetic map, we identified quantitative trait loci (QTL) for each trait. A total of four major and stably expressed QTLs for FLW, PH, and SD were detected on chromosomes 2D and 4B. Of them, the major QTLs individually explained 10.10 – 30.68% of the phenotypic variation. QTLs with pleiotropic effects were identified on chromosomes 4A and 6D as well. Furthermore, the genetic relationships between seven yield-related traits were detected and discussed. A few genes related to leaf growth and development at the interval of a major locus for FLW on chromosome 2D were predicated. Overall, the present study provided useful information for understanding the genetic basis of yield-related traits and will be useful for marker-assisted selection in wheat breeding.
Highlights
Ninety-five percent of the energy in nature comes from photosynthesis (Zhai et al, 2002) and the leaves are the major photosynthetic organ in plants
The present study focused on detecting quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling flag leaf traits including flag leaf length (FLL) and flag leaf width (FLW), and spike-related traits including spikelet number spike (SNS), spike length (SL) and spike density (SD), and anthesis date (AD) and plant height (PH) in a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population developed from the cross between ‘AS985472’ and ‘Sumai 3,’ and evaluating their genetic correlations
The continuous distributions with ranges from 1.52 to 2.90 cm in FLW, 19.41 to 31.05 cm for FLL, 136 to 162 d for AD, 61.67 to 131.17 cm for PH, 8.2 to 15.63 cm for SL, 17 to 25 for SNS and 1.37 to 2.15 for SD (Table 1) and transgressive segregation across all environments as well as in the best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) datasets (Figure 2) indicated that the RILs were suitable for QTL analysis
Summary
Ninety-five percent of the energy in nature comes from photosynthesis (Zhai et al, 2002) and the leaves are the major photosynthetic organ in plants. A comprehensive understanding of the genetic mechanism for flag leaf width (FLW), flag leaf length (FLL), PH and spike-related traits is critical for increasing grain yield. In hexaploid wheat, major QTLs for FLL, FLW, flag leaf area (FLA), the ratio of length/width of flag leaf (FLR), flag leaf angle (FLANG), fag leaf opening angle (FLOA) and fag leaf bend angle (FLBA) were mapped to chromosomes 2D, 5B, 4B (Ma et al, 2020). Liu et al (2018c) detected QTLs for FLL, FLW, FLA and FLANG on chromosomes 1B, 2B, 3A, 3D, 4B, 5A, 6B, 7B, and 7D using a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from ‘ND3331’ and ‘Zang1817.’ Hu et al (2020) identified 161 QTLs for yield-related traits including grain yield per plant (GYP), spike number per plant (SN), kernel number per spike (KPS), SL, SNS, FLL, FLW, FLA, PH, AD and heading date (HD) on 21 chromosomes except 2D, 3D, and 6D. Studies on traits related to flag leaf and spike have made great progress, there are still many novel loci that can be excavated and utilized from different germplasm resources
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