Background: Cold injury is one of the most important limiting factors for maize production in mid-high latitude regions in the world. A total of 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 different research studies.

Results: A consensus map of QTLs related to maize low temperature tolerance was 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. A total of 187 QTLs were projected onto the IBM2 2008 Neighbors by software BioMercator. Forty-seven consensus QTLs were detected. The confidence interval at all sites ranged from 0.04 cM to 102.73 cM, and the proportion of the phenotypic variance associated with each of them ranged from 3.32% to 20.11%. Major chromosomal sites were identified on Chr.6 (MQTL29, MQTL30, and MQTL31).

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