Cold injury of maize is one of the most important limiting factors to maize production in mid-high latitude regions in the world. 314 QTLs for maize low temperature tolerance have been identified in different populations using different statistical methods. However, few identical QTLs have been identified in the different researches.

A consensus map of QTLs related to maize low temperature tolerance has been constructed, based on the public genetic map, IBM2 2008 Neighbors as a reference map, along with a set of 314 QTLs reported in the literature over the past 20 years. 187 QTLs was projected onto the IBM2 2008 Neighbors by software BioMercator. 47 consensus QTLs were detected. The confidence interval at all sites ranged from 0.04cM to 102.73cM, and the proportion of the phenotypic variance associated with each of them from 3.32% to 20.11%. Major chromosomal sites were identified on Chr.6 (MQTL29, MQTL30 and MQTL31).

This study provides further insights into the genetic basis of maize low temperature tolerance. Moreover, the MQTLs reported here could be harnessed for functional markers development and candidate genes mining of maize low temperature tolerance.