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Europe is highly dependent on soybean meal imports and anticipates an increase of domestic plant protein production. Ongoing climate change resulted in northward shift of plant hardiness zones, enabling spring-sowing of freezing-sensitive crops, including soybean. However, it requires efficient reselection of germplasm adapted to relatively short growing season and long-day photoperiod. In the present study, a PCR array has been implemented, targeting early maturity (E1–E4, E7, E9, and E10), pod shattering (qPHD1), and growth determination (Dt1) genes. This array was optimized for routine screening of soybean diversity panel (204 accessions), subjected to the 2018–2020 survey of phenology, morphology, and yield-related traits in a potential cultivation region in Poland. High broad-sense heritability (0.84–0.88) was observed for plant height, thousand grain weight, maturity date, and the first pod height. Significant positive correlations were identified between the number of seeds and pods per plant, between these two traits and seed yield per plant as well as between flowering, maturity, plant height, and first pod height. PCR array genotyping revealed high genetic diversity, yielding 98 allelic combinations. The most remarkable correlations were identified between flowering and E7or E1, between maturity and E4or E7and between plant height and Dt1or E4. The study demonstrated high applicability of this PCR array for molecular selection of soybean towards adaptation to Central Europe, designating recessive qPHD1and dominant Dt1, E3, and E4alleles as major targets to align soybean growth season requirements with the length of the frost-free period, improve plant performance, and increase yield.

Ongoing climate change has considerably reduced the seasonal window for crop vernalization, concurrently expanding cultivation area into northern latitudes with long-day photoperiod. To address these changes, cool season legume breeders need to understand molecular control of vernalization and photoperiod. A key floral transition gene integrating signals from these pathways is the Flowering locus T(FT). Here, a recently domesticated grain legume, yellow lupin (Lupinus luteusL.), was explored for potential involvement of FThomologues in abolition of vernalization and photoperiod requirements. Two FTa(LlutFTa1aand LlutFTa1b) and FTc(LlutFTc1and LlutFTc2) homologues were identified and sequenced for two contrasting parents of a reference recombinant inbred line (RIL) population, an early-flowering cultivar Wodjil and a late-flowering wild-type P28213. Large deletions were detected in the 5′ promoter regions of three FThomologues. Quantitative trait loci were identified for flowering time and vernalization response in the RIL population and in a diverse panel of wild and domesticated accessions. A 2227 bp deletion found in the LlutFTc1promoter was linked with early phenology and vernalization independence, whereas LlutFTa1aand LlutFTc2indels with photoperiod responsiveness. Comparative mapping highlighted convergence of FTc1indel evolution in two Old World lupin species, addressing both artificial selection during domestication and natural adaptation to short season environmental conditions. We concluded that rapid flowering in yellow lupin is associated with the de-repression of the LlutFTc1homologue from the juvenile phase, putatively due to the elimination of all binding sites in the promoter region for the AGAMOUS-like 15 transcription factor.