Lepidium campestre (L.) or field cress is a multifaceted oilseed plant, which has not been domesticated yet. Moreover, the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying the domestication traits of field cress remain largely elusive. The overarching goal is to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) that are fundamental for domestication of field cress. Mapping and dissecting quantitative trait variation may provide important insights into genomic trajectories underlying field cress domestication. We used 7624 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers for QTL mapping in 428 F₂ interspecific hybrid individuals, whilst field phenotyping was conducted in F_2:3 segregating families. We applied multiple QTL mapping algorithms to detect and estimate QTL effects for seven important domestication traits of field cress. Verification of pod shattering across sites revealed that the non-shattering lines declined drastically whereas the shattering lines increased sharply, possibly due to inbreeding followed by selection events. In total, 1461 of the 7624 SNP loci mapped to eight linkage groups (LGs), spanning 571.9 cM map length. We identified 27 QTL across all LGs of field cress genome, which captured medium to high heritability, implying that genomics-assisted selection could deliver domesticated lines in field cress breeding. The use of high throughput genotyping can accelerate the process of domestication in novel crop species. This is the first QTL mapping analyses in field cress genome that may lay a foundational framework for positional or functional QTL cloning, introgression, as well as genomics-assisted breeding in field cress domestication.

Phenotype and genotype data records for field cress