Some major outcomes

Few examples of important outcomes of this research were summarized here each with a link to a more detailed presentation.

First, an increase of the budget increases the expected selection but the return of investment is rather low. For instance, a five-fold increase in the budget yielded only 20% increase in the selection gain. This is due to the very flat curves of the selection intensity and heritability for increased budgets. 

In practical hybrid breeding, mostly inbred tester were used for GCA tests. However, the use of broad testers combining several inbred testers in one tester, e.g. a two-way or four-way cross, largely increases the selection gain for general combining ability. Even more, specifique testing designs bear the potential to further increase the gain from selection.

Breeders run in parallel numerous crosses each with a high number of lines in their programs. Different breeding strategies were feasible, for instance pedigree schemes selecting first among and then within crosses. In contrast, one could neglect these family structure and select across all lines irrespective the cross they were originating, i.e. mass selection. Even more, one could increase the number of progenies from very hot crosses at the expense of reduced number of progenies in crosses of intermediate importance. Our optimization results were summarized here. 

Wheat breeders currently debate whether they should stick to hybrid breeding in the future. First results on heterosis are promising, however the question arise whether hybrid breeding is competitive against line breeding in a long-term. We therefore compared hybrid versus line breeding in wheat for a couple of scenarios. For instance, we also investigated whether increased budget in hybrid breeding or the increased yield stability might affect this comparison. The answer is quite complex and can only be given for each specifique breeder’s situation (link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00122-014-2325-8)

For further results contact Dr. Longin.