Evaluation and association analysis of quality traits in Chinese winter wheat landraces on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Description

Xingxin Han, Yuqing Zhang, Wanwei Hou, and Miaomiao Huang mine, in a 2026 study, the grain quality hidden in old wheat varieties grown on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. These landraces, farmer-kept lines rather than modern breeds, hold diversity that breeding has elsewhere discarded. The team measured eight quality traits, from protein and gluten content to dough behavior, in 279 landraces across four plateau environments.

A genome-wide scan with a dense marker array found sixty-two stable loci tied to the traits, nineteen of them steering several traits at once. One stretch of chromosome 1B influenced water absorption, protein, and dough times in every environment. Within it, two haplotypes stood out for better flour behavior. Ten candidate genes were named, spanning signaling, metabolism, and stress response. The authors offer the loci and haplotypes as tools for marker-guided breeding that keeps the plateau's heritage in play.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13591825