Breeding View - Statistical Workflows for Plant Breeding

The Breeding Management System (BMS) is a suite of software tools designed specifically to help plant researchers manage and analyse phenotypic and genotypic data, helping them make faster selection decisions and develop new crop varieties more efficiently. A key component of the BMS, the Breeding View statistical engine, provides breeders with configurable analytical workflows within a highly visual and interactive interface. The Breeding View supports statistical analyses performed by generating scripts to use within Genstat or R, and workflows include: (1) single site phenotypic analysis, (2) multi-site (GxE) phenotypic analysis, and (3) single trait QTL linkage analysis. All workflows permit the simultaneous batch analysis of sites or traits. Phenotypic workflows are fully integrated with the BMS database; so that data can be selected from the database, automatically imported to Breeding View for analysis, including outlier detection in the single site analysis workflow, and the results saved back to the database. All analysis results, including graphical output, are also saved by default to the user’s workspace on their machine. Future developments aim to include: improved reporting and visualization of results; line by tester analysis within the single site workflow; a multi-site/multiyear mega analysis workflow; integration of the QTL workflow with BMS database; additional experimental designs, and general improvements to ensure that all workflows, whether using Genstat or R, deliver the same analytical capabilities, within the limits of the statistical packages.