Molecular Marker Resources Supporting the Australian Lupin Breeding Program

Over the last 60 years the Australian lupin industry has emerged to become the largest producer in the world, accounting for 85% of global lupin seed market. This progress was achieved by the rapid domestication process of the narrow-leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.) as a grain legume crop. Narrow-leafed lupin improvement has been based on the identification of donors carrying desirable alleles conferring particular agronomic traits and, subsequently, their orchestrated transfer by classical genetic approaches into domesticated germplasm. These traits include, among others, reduced pod shattering, low alkaloid content, seed water permeability, early flowering, and resistance to diseases caused by pathogenic fungi: anthracnose (Colletotrichum lupini) and Phomopsis stem blight (Diaporthe toxica). Moreover, some of these traits are related with recessive alleles requiring additional breeding effort. To facilitate selection of desirable genotypes in the progenies and cross derivatives, molecular markers linked to particular trait loci were developed and implemented in Australian breeding program.