Abstract
Wheat plants have the ability to adapt to a wide range of environments. Inside the species, like many other cereals and plants, flowering is regulated by photoperiod and vernalization requirements. Today, in a scenario of climate change, this ability needs to be studied and exploited in modern breeding in order to obtain high wheat yield under different environmental conditions. In the present work, a set of 214 durum wheat varieties, including Spanish landraces and cultivated reference materials, has been characterized at genetic level. Vernalization genes VRN-A1, VRN-B1, VRN-B3 and photoperiod genes Ppd-A1 and Ppd-B1 have been analyzed using the PCR technique, through the use of molecular markers described in scientific literature. The VRN-A1 and VRN-B1 have been polymorphic in the collection of landraces, but no polymorphism could be detected for the other loci. The allelic composition has been studied in relation to the subspecies and the genetic population structure. Furthermore, a vernalization field experiment has been conducted in the landraces to determine whether cold accumulation determine flowering or if this process is independent. Also, heading date and maturity date results from 3 different localities have been studied. With all of this data, statistical analysis has been done in order to analyze the relationship between the genotype and the phenotypic traits. The results showed that the VRN-A1 genotype has an influence in the heading date, and maturity date, and that these traits are also related to the vernalization requirement. This work supports the use of genetic resources in wheat breeding programs to enlarge the genetic variability of modern cultivars, but these resources needs to be more exhaustive characterized for their efficient use.
