Wheat yield is highly correlated with plant height, heading date, spike characteristics, and kernel traits. In this study, we used the wheat55K single nucleotide polymorphism array to genotype a recombinant inbred line population of 165 lines constructed by crossing two tetraploid wheat materials, Icaro and Y4. A genetic linkage map with a total length of 6244.51 cM was constructed, covering 14 chromosomes of tetraploid wheat. QTLs for 12 important agronomic traits, including plant height (PH), heading date (HD), awn color (AC), spike-branching (SB), and related traits of spike and kernel, were mapped in multiple environments, while combined QTL-by-environment interactions and epistatic effects were analyzed for each trait. A total of 52 major or stable QTLs were identified, among which may be some novel loci controlling PH, SB, and kernel length-width ratio (LWR), etc., with LOD values ranging from 2.51 to 54.49, thereby explaining 2.40-66.27% of the phenotypic variation. Based on the 'China Spring' and durum wheat reference genome annotations, candidate genes were predicted for four stable QTLs, QPH.nwafu-2B.2 (165.67-166.99 cM), QAC.nwafu-3A.1 (419.89-420.52 cM), QAC.nwafu-4A.1 (424.31-447.4 cM), and QLWR.nwafu-7A.1 (166.66-175.46 cM). Thirty-one QTL clusters and 44 segregation distortion regions were also detected, and 38 and 18 major or stable QTLs were included in these clusters and segregation distortion regions, respectively. These results provide QTLs with breeding application potential in tetraploid wheat that broadens the genetic basis of important agronomic traits such as PH, HD, AC, SB, etc., and benefits wheat breeding.
Keywords: 55K SNP array; QTL cluster; agronomic traits; epistatic effect; marker segregation distortion; tetraploid wheat.