Development of a Nested Association Mapping (NAM) population in wheat and QTL mapping for adaptation traits, yield and grain protein content

DONAIRE G.; VANZETTI L.; HELGUERA M.; BORRAS L.; HEGARTY J.; CHICAIZA O.; DUBCOVSKY J.

San Diego

Congreso; Plant and Animal Genome; 2017

Grain yield is a complex trait involving multiple genes with additive effects and high environmental interactions. In this work a NAM population was developed using a set of spring wheat genotypes adapted to California environments for genetic dissection of yield and protein content. The cultivar Blanca Fuerte (high yield and low protein) was crossed with eleven cultivars and advanced lines from CIMMYT and UC Davis and 372 RILs were developed. The population was genotyped using the 90K SNP chip (Illumina Infinium array). A linkage joint map was constructed including 4,501 SNPs distributed in 970 loci along the 21 wheat chromosomes. The population was phenotyped in Davis, California for three consecutive years (2011, 2012 and 2013) and seven agronomic traits were evaluated: Heading Date (HD), Plant Height (PH), Yield (YLD), Spike Number (SN), Spike Grain Number (SGN), Thousand Kernel Weight (TKW) and Grain Protein Content (PROT). At least 103 QTLs were detected including 17 for HD, 20 for PH, 23 for GPC, 4 for SGN, 7 for SN, 13 for TKW and 19 for YLD. Most of the alleles for higher YLD came from Blanca Fuerte and were linked in repulsion with PROT QTLs from the other parents except YLD QTLs on 2B, 2D, 4A and 5B chromosomes. These three alleles for high YLD and no negative correlation with PROT were selected for utilization in the wheat breeding program.