Genomewide Selection with Minimal Crossing in Self‐Pollinated Crops

Abstract

Genomewide selection in plants has focused on cross‐pollinated species, such as maize (Zea mays L.), in which selected plants can be easily crossed to obtain a large number of seeds for the next cycle of selection. Here I describe and present simulation results for a genomewide selection procedure that requires minimal crossing in self‐pollinated crops. This procedure, referred to as GWSSelf, involves producing only a few F1 seeds from crosses among the selected progenies in Cycle 0, allowing the F1 seeds to naturally self‐pollinate to produce F2 seeds, conducting marker‐based selection among the resulting F2 plants, and repeating this select‐recombine‐self procedure in a year‐round nursery or greenhouse. With barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) as a model species, I found from simulation experiments that selection responses with GWSSelf were 81 to 87% of the responses obtained if genomewide selection procedures appropriate for maize were used. These lower responses can be compensated for by more stringent selection.