IMPACT OF QFFE.perg-5A and QFEm.perg-3A ON YIELD SPIKE FRUITING EFFICIENCY AND REALTED TRAITS IN WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.)

PRETINI NICOLE; VANZETTI, LEONARDO; GONZÁLEZ FG

Congreso; 2nd International Wheat Congress; 2022

Wheat production needs to increase in coming years to supply food demand. An alternative to achieve this goal is to increase cultivar’s potential yield through genetic improvement. Spike fruiting efficiency (FE), defined as the grain number (GN) produced per unit spike dry weight at anthesis (SDW), is a promising trait to improve potential yield. It is the result of the fertile floret efficiency (FFE- number of fertile florets per unit SDW) and grain set (grains per fertile floret). As it is hard to measure, it is usually estimated at maturity (FEm) as the GN produced per unit of no-grain spike dry weight at maturity or chaff (CH). Previously we detected at the spike level the QFFE.perg-5A (associated with FFE, FE and FEm) and the QFEm.perg-3A (associated with FEm) in a doubled haploid (DH) population (Baguette19 x BioINTA 2002, B19xB2002). In this study, we scaled up analyzing the impact of those QTL on yield and related traits. The DH was phenotyped at plot level (m-2) for FE, FEm , GN, SDW, CH, thousand grain weight (TGW) and spike number in 2 or 3 environments, depending on the trait. An ANOVA using the SNP of the QTL peak was performed to analyze the epistatic interactions and their effects on each trait. As a result, no epistatic interaction between QFFE.perg-5A and QFEm.perg-3A was detected (P>0.05). The QFFE.perg-5A did not present interaction with the environment in any of the studied traits (P>0.05). The presence of the B19 allele increased yield (615 vs 576 g m-2, P