Abstract
Selection of grazing-tolerant lucerne (Medicago sativa) germplasm with low autumn dormancy and erect growth habit, suitable to environments with mild winters, is hindered by genetically-based tradeoffs among these traits. Marker-assisted selection (MAS) may help overcoming the difficulty of phenotypic selection and hasten the breeding process. Over 400 progenies from four bi-parental crosses between contrasting parents from two cultivars were phenotyped for grazing tolerance and six other morpho-physiological characters. In parallel, genotyping-by-sequencing marker data were generated, with the objective to facilitate the multi-trait MAS by identifying quantitative trait loci (QTL) for the traits and assessing the extent of their co-location. In total, 9594 markers, with less than 20% missing data, segregated as simplex markers in at least one progeny family. Twenty-seven QTL were identified for six traits in the different bi-parental crosses. QTL were found to a different extent on all homology groups except homology group 4. No QTL was found for dry-matter yield before grazing imposition. The number of QTL for other traits varied from one (basal plant diameter) to nine (plant growth habit). Only for growth habit were QTL observed in all four crosses. The QTL analysis largely confirmed the association between grazing tolerance, non-erect growth habit and autumn dormancy. However, the absence of complete co-location of QTL highlighted a partly different genetic control of these traits, thereby offering scope for MAS exploitation to select genotypes carrying useful trait combinations.
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The genotyping data are available at https://doi.org/10.15454/RU4WRN.
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Acknowledgements
This study was carried out within the FP7-ArimNet project ‘Resilient, water- and energy-efficient forage and feed crops for Mediterranean agricultural systems (REFORMA)’, with funds provided by ANR in France (ANR-12-AGRI-0006) and the Government of Italy (MiPAAF). We are grateful to Sandro Proietti and Philippe Cormenier for technical assistance.
Funding
Funds were provided by ANR in France (ANR-12-AGRI-0006) and the Government of Italy (MiPAAF) for the ERA-Net-ArimNet project ‘Resilient, water- and energy-efficient forage and feed crops for Mediterranean agricultural systems (REFORMA)’.
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Conceptualization: PA, BJ, LP; Funding acquisition: PA, BJ; Supervision: LP, BJ; Phenotyping: LP, PA; Genotyping: BJ, PB, SD; Bioinformatics: PL, PB, BJ; Mapping: PL, BJ; Writing—original draft preparation: LP, BJ, PA; Final approval to the manuscript: All authors.
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Genetic maps of the four parents: CA2 (Fig. S1a) and CA7 (Fig. S1b) from cultivar Camporegio, MA1 (Fig. S1c) and MA7 (Fig. S1d) from cultivar Mamuntanas. For each of the eight homology groups of each parent, four linkage groups (or chromosomes) are expected (PNG 779 KB)
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Pecetti, L., Barre, P., Delaunay, S. et al. QTL analysis for grazing tolerance, autumn dormancy and growth habit offers prospects for marker-assisted selection in lucerne. Euphytica 217, 171 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-021-02897-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-021-02897-7