Former Iowa State University doctoral student Diana Escamilla working in a field. Credit: Diana Escamilla/Iowa State University
Developing high-yielding, nutritious and climate-resilient crops is vital to safeguard the future of global food production. To meet the challenges ahead, Iowa State University scientists are working with crop breeders to look for approaches that can efficiently speed up crop improvement programs.
"Genomic selection is an important part of the answer," according to Professor Jianming Yu, the Pioneer Distinguished Chair in Maize Breeding and director of the Raymond F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding at Iowa State.
Genomic selection (GS) is a set of related technologies quickly moving from theory to practice. In just a couple of decades, they are bringing seismic changes to crop and animal breeding programs.
A recent paper titled "Genomic Selection: Essence, applications and prospects," published in The Plant Genome, reviews GS as part of a special section on crop genetics, genomics and biotechnology. The lead author, Diana Escamilla, a former post-doctoral researcher in Yu's lab, is now a crop breeding specialist in private industry.
Escamilla, Yu and the article's other authors describe GS as a plant breeding strategy designed to predict measurable traits. It exploits relationships between a plant's genetic makeup and its phenotypes (observable characteristics) to build models that can better predict performance.
The process increases the capacity to evaluate more individual crops and shortens the time required for breeding cycles. It can be used for multiple purposes, including exploring genetic diversity, selecting breeding parents for desired traits, and choosing genetics adapted to future predicted conditions by incorporating environmental variables.
"It was exciting to be invited to write this paper to help people understand genomic selection, why it's important and how it is evolving," Escamilla said. "As in the title, we try to capture the essence of genomic selection and explain how the strategy can allow breeders to more quickly and accurately respond to the needs of farmers and a growing human population."
"As we look ahead, the field is integrating new technologies like artificial intelligence and creating new decision-support tools. It started with corn, wheat and soybeans, but it can be applied to improve many other crops that people in the world rely on, like legumes and vegetables," she said.
"Now a large part of my focus here is on technology training for the next generation," Yu said. "I am proud of the good work by students like Diana who are helping us carry on the legacy of Iowa State as a worldwide center of leadership in plant breeding."
