Comprehensive speed breeding: a high-throughput and rapid generation system for long-day crops.

Abstract

Breeding cycle time largely determines the efficiency of crop genetic improvement. To accelerate the generation progress, Watson et al. (2018) proposed a concept of 'speed breeding (SB)' by extending the photoperiod and increasing the light intensity during plant growth. However, there have been few reports on the successful application of SB in semi-winter and winter long-day crops. Here, we propose a comprehensive speed breeding (CSB) system for the rapid generation and high-throughput culture of long-day crops, which can accomplish 4.5 generations for both semi-winter canola and winter wheat per year. With the aid of extra far-red light, three and 5.5 generations can be accomplished for the typical winter and semi-winter type canola. CSB also exhibits high efficiency in spring type canola, and can achieve up to 6.5 and 5.5 generations with or without extra far-red light, respectively. This strategy is expected to greatly accelerate gene pyramiding of superior alleles, screening of recombinants for QTL mapping and functional genomics research by rapid purification of multiple mutated alleles.