Abstract
Due to variable moisture conditions in the U.S. Great Plains, it is important to understand genetic control of crop traits under a range of soil moisture levels. Our objective was to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) for yield, phenology, and morphological traits in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under different soil moisture conditions. Field evaluation of a winter wheat doubled haploid population (n = 185) derived from a cross between CO940610 and ‘Platte’ was carried out in Fort Collins and Greeley, Colorado, USA in 2007–2008 and 2008–2009, respectively. At each location, trials were grown under moderate drought stress and fully irrigated conditions. A total of 33 QTL for 11 traits was detected in two or more environments. A cluster of QTL for nine traits was found on chromosome 2B in the vicinity of the photoperiod response gene Ppd-B1. Other stable QTL clusters were detected on chromosome 6A and near the vernalization response gene Vrn-D3 on chromosome 7D. A QTL for grain yield on chromosome 5A was detected in three environments. With minor exceptions, the large-effect QTL were detected in both the water limited and fully irrigated environments, rather than being detected only under specific moisture levels.
Highlights
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is among the world’s most important food crops, accounting for about one-fifth of the calories in the human food supply [1]
200-kernel weight (200 Kwt) increased at Fort Collins (7.24 g dry vs. 7.13 g wet, p < 0.05) and did not differ significantly at Greeley (7.30 g wet vs. 7.22 g dry, p > 0.05), indicating that the yield reduction was due to fewer kernels rather than smaller kernels
The Platte/CO940610 Doubled haploid (DH) population was evaluated in field trials under well-watered and moderate water limitation to identify quantitative trait locus (QTL) for phenological parameters, yield and yield components, Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and drought susceptibility index (Dsi)
Summary
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is among the world’s most important food crops, accounting for about one-fifth of the calories in the human food supply [1]. Microsatellites, known as simple sequence repeats (SSR), have several advantages as markers for QTL detection in wheat They detect a high level of polymorphism because they target highly variable regions of the genome. High-density genetic maps based on SSR have been published for wheat [6,7], and SSR have been widely used in wheat for QTL detection [8]. Another marker technology, Diversity Array Technology (DArT), detects and genotypes large numbers of DNA variants [9], and has been used in previous QTL studies in wheat [10,11,12].
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