Using variable importance measures to identify a small set of SNPs to predict heading date in perennial ryegrass.

ABSTRACT: Prior knowledge on heading date enables the selection of parents of synthetic cultivars that are well matched with respect to time of heading, which is essential to ensure plants put together will cross pollinate. Heading date of individual plants can be determined via direct phenotyping, which has a time and labour cost. It can also be inferred from family means, although the spread in days to heading within families demands roguing in first generation synthetics. Another option is to predict heading date from molecular markers. In this study we used a large training population consisting of individual plants to develop equations to predict heading date from marker genotypes. Using permutation-based variable selection measures we reduced the marker set from 217,563 to 50 without impacting

SUBMITTER: Byrne SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5472636 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature