Abstract Many Chinese wheat landraces appear typically strong seed dormancy and pre-harvest sprouting (PHS) tolerance, which are presumed to be controlled by one or two main genes. In this study, we tried to investigate the genetic basis for strong seed dormancy of wheat(Triticum aestivum) landrace, Wanxianbaimaizi, using two recombinant inbred line (RIL) populations from the crosses of Wanxianbaimaizi/Jing 411 and Wanxianbaimaizi/ Zhongyou 9507, respectively. The populations were genotyped with 1 754 SSR markers and a gene-marker (Vp1-b2). By analyzing the data of grain dormancy covering two sites and four years, two major QTLs were detected using composite interval mapping, one was on chromosome 3AS flanked by Xbarc57 and Xbarc294 with linkage distances of 5.8 cM and 8.5 cM in the two populations, and the other on 3BL linked to Vp1 and Xwmc446 with the distance of 8.1 cM. The two QTLs were designated Qsd.ahau-3A and Qsd.ahau-3B, which explained 25.6%~ 48.3% and 23.5%~ 37.8% of phenotypic variation in the two mapping populations across four environments, respectively. These results demonstrated that the long period seed dormancy of Wanxianbaimaizi is due to the two loci with good stability in varied environments; Therefore, it is possible to obtain strong seed dormancy and resistance to PHS in white wheat cultivars by pyramiding the two major genes.
