Assessing the potential of genetic resource introduction into elite germplasm: a collaborative multiparental population for flint maize

Theor Appl Genet. 2024 Jan 12;137(1):19. doi: 10.1007/s00122-023-04509-5.ABSTRACTImplementing a collaborative pre-breeding multi-parental population efficiently identifies promising donor x elite pairs to enrich the flint maize elite germplasm. Genetic diversity is crucial for maintaining genetic gains and ensuring breeding programs' long-term success. In a closed breeding program, selection inevitably leads to a loss of genetic diversity. While managing diversity can delay this loss, introducing external sources of diversity is necessary to bring back favorable genetic variation. Genetic resources exhibit greater diversity than elite materials, but their lower performance levels hinder their use. This is the case for European flint maize, for which elite germplasm has incorporated only a limited portion of the diversity available in landraces. To enrich the diversity of this elite genetic pool, we established an original cooperative maize bridging population that involves crosses between private elite materials and diversity donors to create improved genotypes that will facilitate the incorporation of original favorable variations. Twenty donor × elite BC1S2 families were created and phenotyped for hybrid value for yield related traits. Crosses showed contrasted means and variances and therefore contrasted potential in terms of selection as measured by their usefulness criterion (UC). Average expected mean performance gain over the initial elite material was 5%. The most pr...

Source: TAG. Theoretical and Applied Genetics - January 12, 2024 Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Dimitri Sanchez Antoine Allier Sarah Ben Sadoun Tristan Mary-Huard Cyril Bauland Carine Palaffre Bernard Lagard ère Delphine Madur Val érie Combes St éphane Melkior Laurent Bettinger Alain Murigneux Laurence Moreau Alain Charcosset Source Type: research