Fig 3. Validation of SSR markers Xbarc230 and Xbarc319 associated with the identified QTL for grain number per spike under water stress during meiosis.

(a) and (c) indicate F_2:4 lines homozygous for Xbarc230 marker alleles from Synthetic W7984 and Lang parental lines, (b) and (d) indicate F_2:4 lines homozygous for Xbarc319 marker alleles from Synthetic W7984 and Westonia parental lines. Values shown are means and error bars are standard errors of the means. Two-sample t-test revealed that under water stress during meiosis, the mean difference in grain number per spike between the allele combination groups in different F_2:4 validation populations was statistically significant (P ≤ 0.05) for both Xbarc230 and Xbarc319 marker alleles.