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Plant breeding: Effective use of genetic diversity

Nature Plants volume 2, Article number: 16154 (2016) Cite this article

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A new study using sorghum demonstrates how breeders can efficiently mine genetic diversity from plant gene banks.

Genomic prediction is the inference of phenotypic data in genotyped individuals on the basis of a model developed in a ‘training set’ of individuals with both phenotypes and genotypes. Specifically, the model assigns phenotypic effects to each allele in a marker data set, which are then summed up to calculate a predicted phenotype for each individual. To apply genomic prediction in a world of universal genotyping, a breeder would simply need to select a training set for phenotyping using locally relevant management practices across a target set of environments. They could then browse a global seed catalogue and pick out varieties customized for their specific conditions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Patrick J. Brown is Associate Professor in the Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.,

    Patrick J. Brown

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  1. Patrick J. Brown
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Correspondence to Patrick J. Brown.

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Brown, P. Plant breeding: Effective use of genetic diversity. Nature Plants 2, 16154 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2016.154

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2016.154

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