Genomics-based activation of plant genetic resources for wheat breeding

Abstract

Genebank collections of plant genetic resources are thought to preserve an abundance of genetic diversity which is, however, often not well described with accessible information. This prevents donor accessions with beneficial genetic variants from being mined by breeding. The presented work aimed to develop, implement, and test new tools for genebank genomics. For instance, genomic prediction models were compared for the ability to provide accurate predictions on the scale of an entire genebank collection. Moreover, designs of trait-customized core collections were tested with the aim to strengthen genome-wide association studies. All use-cases are based on genotypic and phenotypic data from the IPK genebank collection represented by 7,745 winter wheat accession samples. In a nutshell, this work describes modern strategies to leverage genebank collections of plant genetic resources for the exploitation by breeding.