Using a wheat-rye amphihaploid population to map a rye gene responsible for dwarfness

Gene identification in cross-pollinating plants such as rye can be arduous and time consuming because of the difficulties involved with genetic population construction. Here, we provide an alternative approach for the construction of mapping populations to rapidly map genes in cross-pollinated cereal rye. The aim of the present experiments was to genetically analyze the dwarf stature expressed by a germplasm accession of rye. The dwarf phenotype was reversible when the seedlings were exposed to gibberellic acid; the reductions in plant height occurred via reductions in cell size. A mapping population was constructed by generating a set of wheat-rye amphihaploids bred from a single rye plant heterozygous for the dwarfing gene(s). The dwarfness phenotype was expressed in the amphihaploid background, and segregation in the mapping population was consistent with the presence of a single gene. Using rye SSR markers, the gene responsible was located on chromosome arm 1RL, which is also the location of the known rye dwarfing gene Ddw3. This gene is valuable for dwarf breeding of wheat as well as rye.