Better breeding leveraging more biology
Powell OM, Hickey L, Tomura S and Cooper M
Trends in Plant Science
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2026.05.004
Highlights
- Increasing climate-driven variability of cropping systems is testing the limits of current statistical models to predict crop performance across environments.
To improve long-term genetic gain of breeding programs, prediction models must capture plant-environment interactions across diverse genetic backgrounds, environmental conditions and management practices.
Plant breeding programs currently underutilise biological knowledge from basic science about how plants interact with the environment.
Integrating biological knowledge into predictive models offers new opportunities for the plant science community to contribute directly to crop improvement.
Hierarchical prediction models link mechanistic knowledge of traits with breeding outcomes, allowing systematic testing of how plant science discoveries influence crop performance and genetic gain in breeding programs.
