Tightly clustered markers linked to an apospory-related gene region and quantitative trait loci mapping for agronomic traits in Brachiaria hybrids

Brachiariagrass is an important tropical forage grass cultivated around the world. Despite its global importance, the development of brachiariagrass breeding programs was delayed by the complications of recombining aposporous apomictic genotypes until the late 1980s. ‘Mulato’ is the first apomictic hybrid cultivar of brachiariagrass with the development of synthetic sexual tetraploid lines. An amplified fragment‐length polymorphism (AFLP) linkage map of the apomictic pollen donor ‘Mulato’ was developed to identify molecular markers for apospory. The map contained 29 linkage groups with 272 markers. Twelve tightly clustered AFLP markers related to apospory were identified in linkage group 2. Furthermore, we identified quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for leaf width, leaf shape ratio (width/length), stem diameter and percentage of filled seeds using simple interval mapping and composite interval mapping. The AFLP markers tightly linked to apospory and QTLs associated with important agronomical traits will be valuable tools for marker‐assisted selection in brachiariagrass improvement programs.