Molecular Mapping of Reduced Plant Height Gene Rht24 in Bread Wheat

Height is an important trait related to plant architecture and yield potential in bread wheat ( L.). We previously identified a major quantitative trait locus flanked by simple sequence repeat markers and that reduced height by 8.0-10.4%. Here , designated as , was confirmed using recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from a Jingdong 8/Aikang 58 cross. The target sequences of and were used as queries to BLAST against International Wheat Genome Sequence Consortium database and hit a super scaffold of approximately 208 Mb. Based on gene annotation of the scaffold, three gene-specific markers were developed to genotype the RILs, and was narrowed to a 1.85 cM interval between and . In addition, three single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers linked to were identified from SNP chip-based screening in combination with bulked segregant analysis. The allelic efficacy of was validated in 242 elite wheat varieties using and markers. These showed a significant association between genotypes and plant height. reduced plant height by an average of 6.0-7.9 cm across environments and were significantly associated with an increased TGW of 2.0-3.4 g. The findings indicate that is a common dwarfing gene in wheat breeding, and and can be used for marker-assisted selection.