QTL for plant growth and morphology.

Individuals and strains within most species exhibit heritable, and sometimes dramatic, differences in their growth and morphology. Advances in marker genotyping and statistical methods have increased the precision and sensitivity with which the quantitative trait loci (QTL) that are responsible for these differences can be mapped. This has resulted in both a more refined picture of the genetic architecture of many growth traits and the cloning of several of the genes that underlie plant QTL.