Quantitative Trait Loci Mapping in Plants: Concepts and Approaches

Abstract

The narrow genetic base of modern crop cultivars is a serious obstacle to sustain and improve crop productivity due to rapidly occurring vulnerability of genetically uniform cultivars to potentially new biotic and abiotic stresses. Plant germplasm resources, originated from a number of historical genetic events as a response to environmental stresses and selection, are the important reservoirs of natural genetic variations that can be exploited to increase the genetic base of the cultivars. However,