Comparing the Gain from Genomic vs. Phenotypic Selection in Barley

Genomic selection is a marker based selection method that promises to improve and accelerate the breeding process in plants and animals.  Numerous studies have investigated the gain per unit time; however none have directly compared gains from genomic and phenotypic selection.  In this study we use data sets from five years of breeding trials to compare the gain between genomic and phenotypic selection.  In each cycle, about ninety six barley breeding lines were phenotypically evaluated as part of the preliminary yield trial evaluation.  A set 168 historic parental lines were used as a training population to predict the performance of the five consecutive sets using RR-BLUP.  All lines were genotyped using 1,536 SNP markers (BOPA1) for all seven barley chromosomes. We used phenotypic and genomic selection as two different selection schemes.  The best performing 20% of the breeding lines in each year were selected using the two schemes and evaluated together in seven trials in Minnesota and North Dakota to compare the gain from selection using the two selection schemes.