The Quantitative Genetics of Flowering Traits in Wide Crosses of Chickpea

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the most ?mportant food legume crops in world. valued for its nutritive seed composition, which high protein content and used increasingly as a substitute animal protein. Days to f?rst flower?ng an important component adaptation productivity chickpea rainfed environments characterized by terminal drought heat stress. This study aimed identify inheritance pattern quantitative trait loci (QTLs) days first flowering color F2:4 generation nested association mapping (NAM) populations obtained using wide crosses between Gokce cultivated variety wild accessions C. reticulatum echinospermum. A total ten 113 191 individuals each were grown under field conditions near Sanliurfa, Turkey. Two genotyped 46 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, enabling QTL analysis. Flowering time differed families, with frequency distributions indicating controlled both genes major minor effects. Three significant QTLs mapped family. For flower color, chi-square tests showed that five accepted single-gene action, two two-gene three neither model. at genomic regions identified across populations. was positively correlated The diversity underscored potential crop relatives sources novel alleles breeding.