Prospects of marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) for improvement of oil content and quality in safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.).

Abstract

Improvement of oil content and quality is one of the major objectives of saffiower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) breeding. Safflower germplasm possess tremendous range of variability for oil content and quality. However, breeding for enhanced oil content and quality in saffiower is slow due to polygenic control and high sensitivity to the environmental conditions. Recurrent selection is generally considered as a suitable breeding method to improve complex quantitative traits. However, recurrent selection is difficult and sometimes impractical due to phenotypic selection, which is tedious, destructive and very expensive as in the case of farty acid composition of seed oil. With the use of markers, recurrent selection can be accelerated considerably. Marker assisted recurrent selection (MARS) is expected to overcome the limitations of phenotype-based recurrent selection and results in greater genetic gains by allowing to accumulate multiple favorable QTLs from diverse gennplasm sources in breeding populations. The prospects of MARS for improvement of oil content and quality arc discussed here.