MOLECULAR GENETIC DISSECTION OF GRAIN YIELD AND QUALITY TRAITS IN BREAD WHEAT THROUGH ASSOCIATION MAPPING

Wheat quality depends on grain's quality traits, especially protein content, which plays a vital role in the production of bread and ensuring its overall quality. Pakistani Local wheat varieties are mostly deficient in protein and micronutrients. Therefore, it is dire necessity to improve nutritional quality through cost effective as well as rapid approach. Association mapping is reliable phenomenon for identification of important QTLs linked with specific quality traits which play an important role in crop improvement. The recent research was carried out to investigate the genetic dissection of grain yield and major quality traits in 150 bread wheat genotypes through association mapping by using 56 Sequence Tagged Sites (STS) markers. The phenotypic data i.e., two yield and ten quality traits were assessed during two Rabi seasons (2015-16 and 2016-17). Population structure analysis classified the germplasm into three subpopulations based on their geographical origin. General Linear Model (GLM) detected 43 while Mixed Linear model (MLM) identified 14 stable marker trait associations (MTAs) at 0.01 level of probability. Novel genes controlling major quality traits had immense significance and thus after validation they can be successfully utilized through marker assisted selection (MAS) for improvement bread-making quality.