BreedPatH: Zuchtwert-Mustererkennung in Hybridkulturarten

Abstract

The ability of crops to maintain high performance under fluctuating environmental and production conditions is becoming increasingly important in the context of climate change and the demand for more sustainable agricultural systems. In many crop species, hybrid breeding has proven particularly successful because hybrids often exhibit higher adaptability, resilience, and yield stability than inbred cultivars. Faba bean is predominantly an inbreeding crop. However, its breeding system allows the development of synthetic varieties that can exploit part of the heterosis observed in hybrids while retaining the advantages of line-based breeding. Consequently, synthetic breeding represents a promising strategy to combine high yield potential with improved environmental stability. The establishment of heterotic pools is regarded as a major innovation for faba bean synthetic breeding. While heterotic pool development is a cornerstone of successful hybrid breeding, its systematic application in faba bean has remained largely unexplored. The availability of distinct and complementary genetic pools is expected to enhance heterosis, increase selection efficiency, and ultimately contribute to the development of more productive and environmentally robust varieties. At the start of the project, faba bean breeding programs lacked efficient genomic tools and predictive approaches to identify and establish such pools. BreedPatH III built upon the scientific and methodological advances achieved in Phases I and II, where simulation-based breeding strategies, genome-wide haplotype analyses, and genomics-driven crossing designs were successfully developed and applied. The project aimed to transfer these concepts to faba bean by exploiting newly available genomic resources, including high-density SNP and structural variation data. These datasets were used to characterize genetic diversity at the haplotype level, design diverging breeding pools, and develop data-driven strategies for early selection of superior parental lines and synthetic varieties. The overall objective was to establish a new breeding paradigm for faba bean based on genomically informed heterotic pool development and optimized selection strategies. By reducing reliance on lengthy phenotypic evaluation cycles and enabling more targeted crossing decisions, the project sought to substantially accelerate breeding progress.