ABSTRACT

The present study illustrated genetic variability, character association and mapping of QTLs associated with oil content and seed yield traits in safflower RILs. Significant genetic variability was observed for yield and yield attributing traits. High PCV and GCV values were recorded for harvest index and number of secondary branches per plant, respectively. Number of secondary branches per plant, number of primary branches per plant and number of seeds per capitulum exhibited high heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean indicating the scope for effective selection. Test weight recorded a strong positive correlation coupled with positive direct effect on seed yield per plant. Hence, direct selection for this trait would be effective for the identification of high yielding genotypes. Out of 30 polymorphic markers genotyped, 10 markers followed the expected 1:1 Mendelian ratio. The genotypic data obtained helped to form 2 linkage groups (LG 6 and LG 8), which were associated with oil content and seed yield traits. Single marker analysis identified 21 markers, SafM-312, ct-40, SafM-86, CtDES-408, SafM-510, ct-235, CtDES-265, SafM-694, CtDES- 171, SafM-192, SafM-592, SafM-10, CAT-18, CtDES-81, ct-12, CtDES-10, CtDES-144,
CtDES-211, CtDES-72, SafM-316 and SafM-519 which were found to be significantly (0.01%) associated with various oil content and seed yield traits. Inclusive Composite interval mapping detected the putative genomic regions associated with oil content and seed yield traits. Phenotypic variance explained by each QTL ranged from 5.12 per cent to 13.44 per cent. Three QTLs, CtDES-265-ct40 (hull content and oil content), CAT-18–SafM-694 (oil content) and CtDES-408-SafM-510 (test weight) showed larger PVE values (>10%) with LOD score of 7.22 (hull content) and 6.9 (oil content), 4.92 and 7.45 respectively. These findings suggest that LG-6 contains key loci influencing test wight, hull content and oil content in safflower.