Loci affecting flowering time in oat under short-day conditions

Flowering time (or days to heading) is an important characteristic in crop plants that affects adaptation to cropping cycles and growing seasons. The objectives of this study were to identify molecular markers associated with flowering time in 3 oat populations developed from Brazilian oat varieties, and to compare their map locations with those of other loci that might influence flowering time. Flowering time was studied in recombinant inbred lines from 3 hexaploid oat populations: UFRGS 8 x Pc68/5*Starter; UFRGS 881971 x Pc68/5*Starter; and UFRGS 8 x UFRGS 930605. Bulked segregant analysis, using amplified fragment length polymorphism, was followed by selective mapping in each population and in a reference population, 'Kanota' x 'Ogle' (KxO). One quantitative trait locus (QTL) with major effects on flowering time was identified in each cross. Comparative mapping showed that a major QTL, with earliness alleles originating from UFRGS 8 and UFRGS 881971, is in a region with close homology to KxO linkage group 17 and to a locus that reportedly confers day-length insensitivity in oat (Di1). This is the first report to identify the map location of the Di1 locus, and putatively confirm the presence of Di1 alleles in new germplasm. Further comparative mapping and the alignment of mapped oat markers with the sequenced rice genome suggest that this QTL and (or) Di1 is orthologous to the Hd1 locus in rice and the CONSTANS gene in Arabidopsis and other species. A different QTL with major effects segregated in the UFRGS 8 x UFRGS 930605 cross, where the early-flowering allele for Di1 was probably fixed. Two additional QTLs with smaller effects were identified in the UFRGS 8 x Pc68/5*Starter population. These results suggest that the Brazilian oat line UFRGS 8 contains an optimal set of alleles conditioning earliness under the short-day conditions of the Brazilian winter growing season, and that molecular selection could be used to introgress these alleles into other breeding material.