Assessing genomic selection prediction accuracy in a dynamic barley breeding population

Prediction accuracy of genomic selection (GS) has been previously evaluated through simulation and cross-validation; however, validation based on progeny performance in a plant breeding program has not been investigated thoroughly. We evaluated several prediction models in a dynamic barley breeding population comprised of 647 six-row lines using four traits differing in genetic architecture and 1536 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. The breeding lines were divided into six sets designated as one parent set and five consecutive progeny sets comprised of representative samples of breeding lines over a 5-yr period. We used these data sets to investigate the effect of model and training population composition on prediction accuracy over time. We found little difference in prediction accuracy among the models confirming prior studies that found the simplest model, random regression best linear unbiased prediction (RRBLUP), to be accurate across a range of situations. In general, we found that using the parent set was sufficient to predict progeny sets with little to no gain in accuracy from generating larger training populations by combining the parent set with subsequent progeny sets. The prediction accuracy ranged from 0.03 to 0.99 across the four traits and five progeny sets. We explored characteristics of the training and validation populations (marker allele frequency, population structure, and linkage disequilibrium, LD) as well as characteristics of the trait (genetic architecture and heritability, H2). Fixation of markers associated with a trait over time was most clearly associated with reduced prediction accuracy for the mycotoxin trait DON. Higher trait H2 in the training population and simpler trait architecture were associated with greater prediction accuracy.