Development of a STS marker linked to a major locus controlling flour colour in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Flour colour is an important quality trait in the production of bread, nood les and other related end products. Current screening for flour colour in b reeding programs requires several grams of flour to be milled. In order to screen large numbers of plants, a rapid PCR-based assay is required. We rep ort here the conversion of a codominant AFLP marker linked to a major locus controlling flour colour in hexaploid wheat, to a sequence tagged site (ST S) marker for use in marker-assisted selection (MAS). The two-allelic AFLP bands were cloned and sequenced to allow specific primers to be designed. T he primers amplified bands of the expected size in the parental varieties a nd co-segregated with the original AFLP marker in the mapping population. T he primers also amplified alleles of the expected size from the DNA of pare ntal lines of two other related mapping populations. Cultivars that contrib uted to the pedigree of the original parent 'Schomburgk' used to generate t he mapping population were also screened to determine the origin of the 'ye llow' allele.