Methods and compositions for developing cereal varieties with chilling tolerance
Disclosed herein are markers which are associated with chilling tolerance and provide for breeding methods to identify such plants to integrate this trait into cereal plants and further to identify analogous markers in other cereal plants. Importantly, these markers are not linked with deleterious traits such as tall plant height or tannin content, providing for the creation of plant varieties and elite plant varieties with chilling tolerance, dwarf plant height and lack of tannins.
1 . A method of introgressing a chilling tolerance locus into a chilling sensitive sorghum plant, the method comprising:
providing a first sorghum plant with a chilling tolerance locus wherein the locus is on chromosome 1 and linked to a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) corresponding to nucleic acid position 153 of SEQ ID NO: 3, SEQ ID NO: 4, and SEQ ID NO: 5, wherein the first sorghum plant is Sorghum cultivar Hong Ke Zi, Kaoliang, or Niu Sheng Zui or has Sorghum cultivar Hong Ke Zi, Kaoliang, or Niu Sheng Zui as an ancestor;
providing a second sorghum plant;
crossing the first sorghum plant with the second sorghum plant to produce a population of sorghum progeny plants;
selecting from said population at least one sorghum plant having the chilling tolerance locus by marker assisted selection.
2 . A method of introgressing a chilling tolerance locus into a chilling sensitive sorghum plant, the method comprising:
providing a first sorghum plant with a chilling tolerance locus wherein the locus is on chromosome 1 and linked to a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) corresponding to nucleic acid position 153 of SEQ ID NO: 3, SEQ ID NO: 4, and SEQ ID NO: 5, wherein the first sorghum plant is Sorghum cultivar Hong Ke Zi, Kaoliang, or Niu Sheng Zui or has Sorghum cultivar Hong Ke Zi, Kaoliang, or Niu Sheng Zui as an ancestor;
providing a second sorghum plant, wherein the second sorghum plant is Sorghum cultivar BTx623;
crossing the first sorghum plant with the second sorghum plant to produce a population of sorghum progeny plants;
selecting from said population at least one sorghum plant having the chilling tolerance locus.