Psathyrostachys juncea, a typical perennial forage species Raw sequence reads

Tillering is a significant trait of bunch grass that affects biomass and seed yield. Russian wildrye is a long lived cool-season perennial grass with economic and breeding value. Thus, understanding the genetic control of the tillering in Russian wildrye may be helpful to improve the yield of perennial gramineous forages. This study aimed to identify genetic signals associated with plant architecture and tiller traits in Russian wildrye germplasm through a genome-wide association study (GWAS). In this study, 300 Russian wildrye germplasm grown in two locations over four years were used to identify tiller-related traits including plant height, crown diameter, basal cluster diameter, tiller angle and nutritional tiller number. The GWAS was carried out using a linear mixed model implemented in TASSEL.