Field Crop 2025, Vol.8, No.2, 82-92 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/fc 86 environment even exceeds that of genetic factors. These findings indicate that conducting stress-resistant breeding cannot merely focus on laboratory data; it is more reliable to carry out multi-frequency and multi-season field verifications. Figure 1 Location of four environmentally stable QTL in at least five environments (Adopted from Ma et al., 2023) 4.4 Hotspot identification of overlapping QTL regions for multiple traits The most exciting aspect of this research is the discovery of several QTL" hotspots ". There is a magical region on chromosomes IV and VII that can simultaneously affect above-ground growth (such as emergence rate and stem quantity) and underground tuber yield. This pleiotropic gene is truly a treasure for breeders (Mei et al., 2021). On chromosome V, there is even more activity. The QTLS of two unrelated traits, maturity and starch content, are actually very close to each other on the genome-although fine localization reveals that they are actually at different sites. However, to be fair, although these hotspots are convenient, one still needs to be cautious when using them. Sometimes, when a superior site is chosen, it may accidentally bring in a chain of adverse traits. Our laboratory has encountered such a situation: we selected a high-yield site, but as a result, the plants became particularly late-maturing. Nowadays, when making marker-assisted choices, all these chain relationships must be taken into account to avoid neglecting one aspect for another.
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