A biparental Vicia faba mapping population was screened under glasshouse conditions for resistance to a mixture of Fusarium avenaceum and Fusarium oxysporum, revealing several families with moderate to high resistance. Using the Vfaba_v2 Axiom SNP array, a high-density linkage map of 6,755 SNPs was constructed, enabling the identification of a major QTL on linkage group 4 associated with partial resistance to foot and root rot.

The study demonstrates that abscisic acid (ABA) accumulates in darkness to suppress cotyledon opening during seedling deetiolation, and that light exposure lifts this repression, enabling cotyledon aperture. Genome‑wide transcriptional and alternative‑splicing changes accompany this process, and the light‑dependent regulation requires the splicing factors RS40 and RS41, whose activity is repressed in the dark.