Title: Genomic selection

Project managers: Dr. M. Ouzunova (KWS), Prof. Dr. R. Preisinger (LTZ)

Project partners: CAU-TZ, KWS, LTZ, TUM-PZ, UGÖ-TZ

Objective:
Development and implementation of genomic selection strategies in maize, chicken and cattle.

Summary:
Within the scope of the project, strategies for genomic estimation of breeding values, originally devised for cattle, will be applied to breeding populations of maize and chicken. In a first step the optimal estimation methods that have been adapted to the respective population structures are identified by stochastic simulations for the determination of the genomic breeding value. Based on these methods genomic breeding values will be derived from experimental training sets, which have been subject to high-throughput genotyping and phenotyping. In subsequent validation and implementation experiments, the accuracy of genomic breeding values shall be verified. For cattle, advanced strategies for estimation of breeding values accounting for non-additive genetic effects will be devised. In case of sufficient accuracy of the estimated genomic breeding values, existing breeding programs will be optimized by deterministic modeling with respect to implementation of genomic selection in practical breeding programs. The results from this project will benefit project A1 and A4 and wide-ranging synergies will be generated by the joint development of theoretical concepts as well as simulation and analysis tools.

Sub-projects:
A2.1: Implementation of genomic selection in maize
A2.2: Implementation of genomic selection in chicken
A2.3: Enhancement of genomic selection in cattle