Analysis of genetic control and QTL mapping of essential wheat grain quality traits in a recombinant inbred population

Wheat cultivars are genetically crossed for improving end use quality for apt traits as per need of baking industry and broad consumer’s preferences. The processing and baking qualities of bread wheat underlie into genetic make-up of a variety and influence by environmental factors and their interactions. WL711 and C306 derived recombinant inbred lines (RILs) population of 206 was used for phenotyping of quality related traits in three different environmental conditions. The genetic analysis of quality traits showed considerable variation for measurable quality traits with normal distribution and transgressive segregation across the years. From the 206 RIL, few RILs found to be superior to those of the parental cultivars for key quality traitsindicating their potential usefor improvement of end use quality and also suggestingprobability of finding new alleles and allelic combinations from the RIL population. A genetic linkage map including 346 markers was constructed withtotal map distance of 4526.8cM andinterval distance between adjacent markersof 12.9cM. Mapping analysis identified 38 putative QTLs for 13 quality related traits with QTLs explaining 7.9% - 16.8% phenotypic variation spanning over 14 chromosomes i.e. 1A, 1B, 1D, 2A, 2D, 3B, 3D, 4A, 4B, 4D, 5D, 6A, 7A and 7B. Major novel QTLs regions for quality traits have been identified on several chromosome in studied RIL population posing their potential role in marker assisted selection for better bread making quality after validation.