Studying Post Anthesis Heat Tolerance in Wheat and Mapping QTLs for Related Traits.

Heat stress during grain filling in wheat led to a significant reduction in yield parameters. Different senescence-related traits like stay green , chlorophyll content, Cell membrane thermal stability etc  are found to be associated with resistance to heat stress  which contribute to relatively stable yield under high temperature. To identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) for these traits, a RIL (Recombinant Inbred lines) population of cross between  winter wheat cultivars ‘Ventnor’ and ‘Karl 92’was evaluated for heat tolerance using two different high temperature regimes (30°C/25°C, 36°C/30°) at ten days after anthesis. Thylakoid membrane damage (TMD), SPAD chlorophyll content (SCC), plasma membrane damage (PMD) and percent greenness were evaluated and associated with different molecular markers (SSR, AFLP STS and SNPs). The putative QTLs associated with those traits are mostly localized on chromosomes 2A,  6A and  7A and have the potential to be used in marker assisted selection for improving heat tolerance in wheat.