Abstract
Key messageSimultaneous genomic selection for grain yield, protein content and dough rheological traits enables the development of resource-use efficient varieties that combine superior yield potential with comparably high end-use quality.Selecting simultaneously for grain yield and baking quality is a major challenge in wheat breeding, and several concepts like grain protein deviations have been developed for shifting the undesirable negative correlation between both traits. The protein quality is, however, not considered in these concepts, although it is an important aspect and might facilitate the selection of genotypes that use available resources more efficiently with respect to the quantity and quality of the final end products. A population of 480 lines from an applied wheat breeding programme that was phenotyped for grain yield, protein content, protein yield and dough rheological traits was thus used to assess the potential of using integrated genomic selection indices to ease selection decisions with regard to the plethora of quality traits. Additionally, the feasibility of achieving a simultaneous genetic improvement in grain yield, protein content and protein quality was investigated to develop more resource-use efficient varieties. Dough rheological traits related to either gluten strength or viscosity were combined in two separate indices, both of which showed a substantially smaller negative trade-off with grain yield than the protein content. Genomic selection indices based on regression deviations for the two latter traits were subsequently extended by the gluten strength or viscosity indices. They revealed a large merit for identifying resource-use efficient genotypes that combine both superior yield potential with comparably high end-use quality. Hence, genomic selection opens up the opportunity for multi-trait selection in early generations, which will most likely increase the efficiency when developing new and improved varieties.
Highlights
The genetic improvement in grain yield is a major breeding goal in bread wheat, whose achievement is, though, oftentimes complicated by large genotype-by-environment interaction and a complex quantitative inheritance governed by many small-to-medium effect quantitative trait loci (QTL) (Hoffstetter et al 2016b; Schulthess et al 2017)
This study focused on the analysis of a diverse population of 480 F4:6 generation and double haploid winter wheat breeding lines (Triticum aestivum L.) from an applied breeding programme that were developed from 394 families and tested in multi-environment trials under Central and Eastern European conditions from 2009 to 2016
The other major agronomic traits were as expected hardly influenced by upweighting the Glu-1 marker effects and a generally high prediction accuracy could be achieved with a basic genomic best linear unbiased prediction models (GBLUP) model for grain yield (r = 0.751) and the protein content (r = 0.769), while it was lower for the protein yield (r = 0.671)
Summary
The genetic improvement in grain yield is a major breeding goal in bread wheat, whose achievement is, though, oftentimes complicated by large genotype-by-environment interaction and a complex quantitative inheritance governed by many small-to-medium effect quantitative trait loci (QTL) (Hoffstetter et al 2016b; Schulthess et al 2017). The maintenance of or improvement in end-use quality is on the other hand mostly a secondary objective in many bread wheat breeding programmes, and an indirect selection for baking quality traits is often conducted by using the protein content as a major selection criterion in early generations. A plethora of information with regard to baking quality-related traits is made available when implementing genomic selection in early generations This might generally be considered as a beneficial feature, it gives rise to the challenging task of identifying the lines with the desired combination of these dough rheological traits. Breeders might aim to develop high-quality genotypes with acceptable yield potential or develop highyielding varieties while maintaining quality characteristics, both of which are complicated by the frequently observed negative correlation between grain yield and the major quality criterion protein content (Simmonds 1995)
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