Combined selection of progeny in crop breeding using best linear unbiased prediction

Viana, J. M. S., Faria, V. R., Fonseca e Silva, F. and Vilela de Resende, M. D. 2012. Combined selection of progeny in crop breeding using best linear unbiased prediction. Can. J. Plant Sci. 92: 553–562. Combined selection is an important strategy in crop breeding. As the classical index does not consider pedigree information, the objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of the best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) methodology for combined selection of progeny. We analyzed expansion volume (EV) and grain yield of parents and inbred and non-inbred progeny from the popcorn population Viçosa. The BLUP analyses, single-trait and of the same character measured in parents and progeny (combined parent-family) were performed using the ASReml software. Because the experiments were balanced, the estimates of the additive variance from the BLUP and least squares analyses were generally equivalent. The accuracies of the BLUP analyses do not clearly establish the superior technique. The accuracy of the classical index tended to be higher than that obtained from BLUP analyses. There was equivalence between BLUP and least squares analyses relative to half-sib and inbred progeny selection, and superiority of the combined parent-family BLUP index for full-sib selection. The BLUP analyses also differed from the least squares analysis on the coincidence of selected parents. The populations obtained by selection based on BLUP of breeding values presented a lower effective size.