Genomic Selection in Crop Plants

Plant breeding is concerned with genetic improvement of crops. Phenotypic selection has been and still is the basis for the phenomenal progress that plant breeding has made. The use of molecular marker–assisted selection has been limited until now, but genomic selection (GS) is likely to change this dramatically due to the availability of next generation genomic technology, which facilitates dense coverage of a genome with molecular markers. GS uses all the markers on the genome to estimate their effect simultaneously on a trait using a breeding population of plants with phenotypic and molecular marker data. The estimated marker effects are then used to estimate the genomic breeding values in a test population with only genotypic data available. The aim is to save time by increasing the speed with which breeding cycles can be completed with less need for phenotyping. The major factors affecting the accuracy of these genomic predictions as well as the most commonly used models for generating them will be discussed.