Abstract:
White-grained wheat is usually more susceptible to preharvest sprouting (PHS). Accumulation of color
independent grain dormancy QTLs is one of the promising ways of developing PHS tolerance in white
grained wheat. A white grained recombinant inbred line (RIL) population was developed from a cross
between high dormant Japanese red grained wheat, ‘Zenkoujikomugi’ (‘Zen’), and a white cultivar
‘Spica’. White-grained RILs demonstrated a severe variation proving that many genes have involved
in maintaining grain dormancy. Hence, to identify those dormancy QTLs of ‘Zen’ x ‘Spica’, whole ge
nome was assessed with SSR and EST markers. Five novel grain dormancy QTLs, linked with
Xwocs207, Xcfa2163, Xbarc243, Xbarc44 and Xgwm577 markers were detected located on chromosomal
arms 3BS, 5AL, 5BL, 5DL and 7BL, respectively. In all instances, allele contributed to comparatively
higher dormancy was derived from ‘Zen’. The QTL linked with Xwocs207 marker appeared to be ex
tremely effective, stable and reliable. Usually QTLs rendering minor effects were difficult to be detected
if the phenotypic variation of the population was affected by major red color genes. In the present
study, since only the white-grained RILs were used, minor QTLs were also able to be investigated.
