Genetic Analysis of Grain Attributes, Milling Performance, and End-Use Quality Traits in Hard Red Spring Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).

Wheat kernel texture dictates U.S. wheat market class and culinary end-uses. Of interest to wheat breeders is to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) for wheat kernel texture, milling performance, and end-use quality because it is imperative for wheat breeders to ascertain the genetic architecture underlying complex quantitative traits to be able to develop cultivars possessing exceptional genes for end-use quality and milling performance. Towards that end a set of 132 recombinant inbred lines (RIL) from a hard red spring wheat ‘ND2603’ x ‘Butte86’ bi-parental mapping population, segregating for Puroindoline alleles at the Hardness locus, high molecular weight glutenin alleles at the Glu-A1 and Glu-B1 loci, and low molecular weight glutenin alleles at the Glu-A3, Glu-B3 and Glu-D3 loci, were grown in a randomized complete block design in two replications at Bozeman, MT and Pullman, WA in 1998 to evaluate the RIL for sixteen grain, milling and end-use quality parameters at the Western Wheat Quality Laboratory in Pullman, WA. RIL were genotyped using SSR (simple sequence repeat) markers, allele specific sequence tagged site (STS) markers and genotyping by sequencing (GBS) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers and in total 628 polymorphic markers were used to develop a linkage map in MapDisto version 1.8.1 which covered all 21 wheat chromosomes. Multiple interval mapping was subsequently performed in R/qtl and QTL were identified for kernel texture on chromosomes 1A, 1B, 5A and 6B, milling score on chromosome 5A, break flour yield on chromosomes 1B, 3B, 3D, 5A, 6B and 6D, flour ash on chromosomes 2B, 5B and 7A, flour yield on chromosomes 2D, 5A and 6B and flour protein on chromosomes 1A, 1B, 5A and 6B. The discovery of these QTL will assist breeders in developing cultivars with favorable alleles for milling performance and end-use quality through the use of marker assisted selection.