University of Tasmania, Australia

Lentil (Lens culinaris) is an important legume crop that is cultivated in a broad distribution of climatic environments. The control of flowering time response in lentils has been determined to be influenced by several QTLs, among which only one major Mendelian locus has been identified.

Recessive alleles at the Sn locus relax the long day requirement and confer an early flowering under non-inductive short-day conditions. The project aims to further characterize the Sn gene of lentil and to pursue a candidate gene approach to discover its molecular identity. The project also seeks to map Sn on a pea comparative flowering linkage map and analyse the genetic diversity of this gene across a representative sample of the lentil germplasm. The project will also examine the contribution of known flowering genes to natural variation for flowering time in lentil through a QTL approach. It is envisaged that the cloning of the Sn and other legume loci controlling flowering response in lentil will offer significant insights into the genetic control of flowering, climatic adaptation and yield in lentil, and offer prospects for marker-assisted breeding and germplasm screening.