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.
Stejskal, J., Klápště, J., Čepl, J. et al. Effect of clonal testing on the efficiency of genomic evaluation in forest tree breeding. Sci Rep 12, 3033 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06952-8
Sientific Reports
IF 2020 4.379; AIS 1.285 (1.quartile)