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Faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is a globally important nitrogen-fixing legume, which is widely grown in a diverse range of environments. In this work, we mine and validate a set of 845 SNPs from the aligned transcriptomes of two contrasting inbred lines. Each V. faba SNP is assigned by BLAST analysis to a single Medicago orthologue. This set of syntenically anchored polymorphisms were then validated as individual KASP assays, classified according to their informativeness and performance on a panel of 37 inbred lines, and the best performing 757 markers used to genotype six mapping populations. The six resulting linkage maps were merged into a single consensus map on which 687 SNPs were placed on six linkage groups, each presumed to correspond to one of the six V. faba chromosomes. This sequence-based consensus map was used to explore synteny with the most closely related crop species, lentil and the most closely related fully sequenced genome, Medicago. Large tracts of uninterrupted colinearity were found between faba bean and Medicago, making it relatively straightforward to predict gene content and order in mapped genetic interval. As a demonstration of this, we mapped a flower colour gene to a 2-cM interval of Vf chromosome 2 which was highly colinear with Mt3. The obvious candidate gene from 78 gene models in the collinear Medicago chromosome segment was the previously characterized MtWD40-1 gene controlling anthocyanin production in Medicago and resequencing of the Vf orthologue showed a putative causative deletion of the entire 5′ end of the gene.

Drought stress is a major abiotic stress factor, constraining wheat production and quality worldwide. Several drought indices were used to identify drought-tolerant lines among 49 wheat lines. These lines were grown in three locations in Egypt, under rainfed (Barrani and Matrouh) and irrigated (Assiut) conditions. Results showed that grain yield under stress and non-stress environments were highly correlated with the mean productivity (MP), the geometric mean productivity (GMP), stress tolerance index (STI), yield index (YI), harmonic mean (HM), drought resistance index (DRI), and modified stress tolerance index (STI). We found that MP, GMP and STI were considered the best indices for the selection of the relatively tolerant lines. Principal component analysis indicated that the first two components accounted for more than 98% of the total variations for drought tolerant indices.

Bolting tendency in sugar beet is a complex trait has been shown to be controlled by various environmental cues, including prolonged periods of cold temperatures over winter (vernalization) and photoperiod, and multiple genetic factors. Three loci (B, B2 and B4) which trigger bolting in the absence of vernalization were identified and genetically mapped in beet. B4 is linked to the B locus and promotes annual bolting independently of B. Here, genetic analysis of a large segregated F2 population derived from a cross between a biennial sugar beet and an annual beet accession phenotyped for bolting tendency under three environmental conditions, i.e., long day after vernalization, long day without vernalization and shortening daylength revealed the presence of a major gene which is linked to the gene B and suppresses bolting under unfavorable daylength (shortening daylength) and negatively affects bolting time.