Transition strategy for two-part genomic selection in plant breeding

This project is developing a transition strategy that will allow plant breeding programmes to transition from the traditional approach to the two-part genomic selection strategy. Traditional plant breeding programmes simultaneoustly develop a product and improve a population. A breeder begins with a series of crosses that produce new genotypes. These genotypes are then tested in a series of steps with increasing accuracy to find the best genotype, which is eventually released as a variety or hybrid for use by farmers. During the same process, the best genotypes are selected as parents for new crosses. While this lengthy process ensures high accuracy in testing a product for farmers, it limits the speed at which populations are improved. At the Roslin Institute, we proposed a two-part strategy that divides a breeding programme into separate components for population improvement and product development. This work has shown that the two-part strategy combined with genomic selection can increase genetic gain by 2.5 to 4 times compared to the traditional breeding programme. Although this result is very promising, an important practical question arises: how to transition an established plant breeding programme to the two-part strategy, the focus of this project.