Genomic regions for yield and yield parameters in Chinese winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes tested under varying environments correspond to QTL in widely different wheat materials

Field trials with a population of 108 doubled haploid (DH) lines of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) derived from a cross between the Chinese winter wheat cultivars CA9613 and H1488 were carried out at Beijing (China) in 2000/2001 and 2001/2002. In addition, a field trial and a pot experiment were carried out at the experimental field stations of Giessen University (Germany) in the vegetation periods 2004/2005 and 2006/2007. Phenotypic data for major agronomic yield-related traits, i.e. grain weight per ear (GWE), grain number per ear (GNE), plant height and thousand-grain weight (TGW), were recorded in all experiments. In addition, biomass weight per tiller and ear weight were evaluated in the two field trials at Beijing. Based on the phenotypic data and a genetic map comprising 168 SSR markers, an analysis of quantitative trait loci (QTL) was carried out for yield and yield parameters using the composite interval mapping (CIM) approach. A total of 30 QTL were detected for these traits across four environments. Five of these QTL located on chromosomes 1A, 1B, 2B, 2D and 7D exhibited pleiotropic effects. Such pleiotropic gene loci will be very useful for understanding the homologous/homeologous relationships among QTL and designing an appropriate marker-assisted breeding programme including multi-trait selection in order to accumulate (“pyramide”) favorable alleles at different genetic loci.