Trait Stability over Variable Environments and Genomic Selection.

Most climatologists predict that climate change will bring about greater variability in growing environments between seasons and within seasons.  This could increase genotype x environment interactions and reduce gain from selection.  It will also increase the importance of breeding for trait stability.  Breeding for trait stability is difficult because it requires 1) defining stability, 2) phenotyping a population in many environments, and 3) determining that the observed differences in stability are actually heritable.  We have phenotyped two large wheat populations for yield over six to 12 environments and another population for Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) resistance over 16 environments.  Each population has been genotyped with 1,000s of SNP markers.  Trait stability was estimated using regression and multivariate approaches.  We have used genomic selection and cross validation to determine if stability was heritable and the degree that genomic selection could be used to breed for trait stability.  Results will be discussed.