Application of genomic selection in agriculture

Traditional breeding technique for genetic improvement of crops are based on, information on phenotypes and pedigrees to predict breeding values, has been found very successful. But, genetic gain through this technique is found to be very slow, time consuming. However, Due to availability of latest DNA sequencing technologies, now it is possible to estimate breeding values more accurately by using information on variation in DNA sequence. Lots of research has been done in direction of marker assisted selection, still it has some limitation on its implementation. Genomic selection (GS) is proposed to overcome such limitation. GS is a form of marker-assisted selection in which genetic markers covering the whole genome are used. GS predicts breeding value using information available on phenotype and high density marker. Several techniques has been developed for selection and prediction of genotype, these techniques are based on analysis of genotypic and phenotypic data.