Our recently published study evaluates the "Effect of Clonal Testing on the Efficiency of Genomic Evaluation in Forest Tree Breeding". In forestry, breeders have recently started to use genomic BLUP, a selection strategy that relies on SNP markers that are still limited in many species. On the other hand, pedigree-based BLUP has been widely used for decades to increase the accuracy of breeding values estimates in progeny tests. In our study, we compared the response of a conventional BLUP (no genomics) to the GBLUP alone (no clonal testing) or a more resource-demanding GBLUP variant (genomics + clonal testing). To our surprise, traditional BLUP with clonal progeny trials provided comparable genetic gains to the full-scale GBLUP. Therefore, formal pedigree evaluation augmented by clonal testing is still a viable alternative in species where genetic markers are unavailable.
Sientific Reports
IF 2020 4.379; AIS 1.285 (1.quartile)