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QTL mapping of agronomically important traits in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.)

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Abstract

Sorghum is one of the most important cereal crops; it is used to produce feed, sugar, and biofuel. To investigate genetic tradeoffs between grain and stem sugar production, we evaluated plant height, Brix (the percentage of soluble solids in stalk juice), 100-grain weight and flowering time over 3 years in a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population consisting of 189 individuals derived from a cross between the sweet sorghum cultivar ‘Rio’ and grain sorghum ‘BTx623’. We constructed a genetic linkage map (total length, 1418.71 cM; average distance between markers, 11.26 cM), which consisted of 118 simple sequence repeat (SSR) and 8 insertion-deletion (INDEL) markers. A total of 14 QTLs were detected on chromosomes 1, 3, 6, 7, and 9, which included 6 QTLs for plant height; 4 for Brix; and 2 QTLs for each 100-grain weight and flowering time. Eight QTLs were detected at least in 2 years. These results will be useful for future QTL fine mapping and gene mining for these traits, and useful for the improvement of sorghum through molecular marker-assisted selection.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31601627, 31301842), National sorghum research system (CARS-06-01-06), Liaoning important technology developing program, China (2011208001), Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (2014027018, 2015020788), Cultivation Plan for Youth Agricultural Science and Technology Innovative Talents of Liaoning Province (2014043).

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  1. Crops Molecular Improvement Laboratory, Liaoning Innovation Center of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenyang, 110161, China

    Chunming Bai, Chunyu Wang, Ping Wang, Zhenxing Zhu, Ling Cong, Dan Li, Wenjing Zheng & Xiaochun Lu

  2. Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, 110161, China

    Yifei Liu

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  1. Chunming Bai
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  2. Chunyu Wang
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Correspondence to Xiaochun Lu.

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Bai, C., Wang, C., Wang, P. et al. QTL mapping of agronomically important traits in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.). Euphytica 213, 285 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-017-2075-1

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