Genetic Mapping of Milling Quality Traits in Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.)

Milling qualities are key traits for the red lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) industry as price is largely determined by dhal recovery yield. Dhal milling involves removal of the seed coat and splitting of the cotyledon to produce either splits or footballs (cotyledons still attached). The objectives of the study were to determine the heritability of the milling traits dehulling efficiency (DE), milling recovery (MR), and football recovery (FR) and to identify the genomic regions controlling them. We used a lentil recombinant inbred population from the cross 'CDC Robin' x '946a-46', which have contrasting seed characteristics. The mapping population consists of 127 F-7-derived lentil recombinant inbred lines that were phenotyped for milling quality parameters from four site-years in Saskatchewan, Canada. A total of 534 single nucleotide polymorphism markers, seven simple sequence repeat markers, and four morphological markers were used for quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping. The broad-sense heritability was moderate for DE and MR and relatively low for FR. Milling quality traits were significantly correlated with seed shape (seed diameter and seed plumpness). Multiple QTLs for milling traits were detected in six of seven linkage groups (LGs). The most stable QTLs governing DE and MR were clustered on LGs 1, 2, 3, and 7, whereas FR QTLs were clustered on LGs 4, 5, 6, and 7. The molecular markers identified for these traits could be used for improving milling quality in lentil breeding programs.