Genetic dissection of a modern sugarcane cultivar (Saccharum spp.).: II.: Detection of QTLs for yield components

The genetics of current sugarcane cultivars (Saccharum spp.) is outstandingly complex, due to a high ploidy level and an interspecific origin which leads to the presence of numerous chromosomes belonging to two ancestral genomes. In order to analyse the inheritance of quantitative traits, we have undertaken an extensive Quantitative Trait Allele (QTA) mapping study based on a population of 295 progenies derived from the selfing of cultivar R570, using about 1,000 AFLP markers scattered on about half of the genome. The population was evaluated in a replicated trial for four basic yield components, plant height, stalk number, stalk diameter and brix, in two successive crop-cycles. Forty putative QTAs were found for the four traits at P = 5 x 10(-3), of which five appeared in both years. Their individual size ranged between 3 and 7% of the whole variation. The stability across years was improved when limiting threshold stringency. All these results depict the presence in the genome of numerous QTAs, with little effects, fluctuating slightly across cycles, on the verge to being perceptible given the experimental resolution. Epistatic interactions were also explored and 41 independent di-genic interactions were found at P = (5 x 10(-3))(2). Altogether the putative genetic factors revealed here explain from 30 to 55% of the total phenotypic variance depending on the trait. The tentative assignment of some QTAs to the ancestral genomes showed a small majority of contributions as expected from the ancestral phenotypes. This is the first extensive QTL mapping study performed in cultivated sugarcane.