Abstract Dolichos bean is grown in environments with short and long crop growth seasons. Development and deployment of cultivars with flowering time (FT) that matches prevailing crop growth season help maximize their productivity in the environments to which they are targeted. Dependable knowledge on genetic basis of FT enables the use of the most appropriate selection strategy to breed cultivars with desired FT. We unraveled the genetic basis by detecting QTL controlling FT using SSR markers following selective genotyping strategy (SGS) in F2 mapping population (MP). We evaluated the effectiveness of SGS as compared to entire MP genotyping strategy (EGS) to detect QTL controlling FT. Our results suggest that alleles at two SSR markers (LPD 25 and LPD 190) are linked to QTL controlling FT in both SGS and EGS. Our results provide adequate evidence for comparable statistical power of SGS relative to EGS for detection of QTL controlling FT.