Abstract
The elite maize hybrid Zhengdan 958 (ZD958), which has high and stable yield and extensive adaptability, is widely grown in China. To elucidate the genetic basis of yield and its related traits in this elite hybrid, a set of doubled haploid (DH) lines derived from ZD958 were evaluated in four different environments at two locations over two years, and a total of 49 quantitative trait loci (QTL) and 24 pairs of epistatic interactions related to yield and yield components were detected. Furthermore, 21 QTL for six investigated phenotypic traits were detected across two different sites. Combining the results of these QTL in each environment and across both sites, three main QTL hotspots were found in chromosomal bins 2.02, 2.05–2.06, and 6.05 between the simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers umc1165-bnlg1017, umc1065-umc1637, and nc012-bnlg345, respectively. The existence of three QTL hotspots associated with various traits across multiple environments could be explained by pleiotropic QTL or multiple tightly linked QTL. These genetic regions could provide targets for genetic improvement, fine mapping, and marker-assisted selection in future studies.
Highlights
Maize is one of the most important food and feed crops in the world and plays an important role in ensuring food security
quantitative trait loci (QTL) for ear diameter (ED) and kernel number per row (KNR) were identified in this region at the CG and QX planting sites, respectively. These results suggest a close genetic correlation among ED, ear row number (ERN), KNR, and grain weight per plant (GWP) and could be due to pleiotropy of this QTL
Our results indicate that the genetic basis of grain yield and its components is controlled by major QTL effects, additive × additive (AA) and AA × environment (AAE) interaction effects simultaneously
Summary
Maize is one of the most important food and feed crops in the world and plays an important role in ensuring food security. 12 major QTL for grain weight per plant (GWP) and HKW were identified using two F2:3 populations across six environments, and the highest contribution of a single QTL was 8%4. The objectives of this study were to (1) elucidate the relationship between grain yield and its components, (2) identify QTL for grain yield-related traits across multiple environments, and (3) study G × E interactions. These findings may reveal the genetic basis of grain yield and its components in the hybrid ZD958 and provide molecular markers for developing new superior maize hybrids
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