Work

GWAS and genomic prediction: Breeding strategies for maize stover digestibility

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: On the European Atlantic coast, maize silage is essential in the diet of dairy cows, although its digestibility is limited by the strength of cell wall fibres, which directly affects milk production. This study presents an innovative advance in the genetic improvement of forage maize by optimising both the quantity and quality of lignocellulosic biomass through a combination of GWAS and genomic prediction strategies. Despite the complexity of plant fibre digestion, several genomic regions associated with cell wall composition have been identified, highlighting key genes involved in lignin biosynthesis, polysaccharide modification and the action of delignifying enzymes. These findings confirm the polygenic nature of lignocellulosic biomass digestibility and provide the basis for integrating genomic selection into breeding programmes. This is one of the first studies to use genomic predictions for this purpose, proposing to optimise the models by including more related individuals in the training set and integrating more complete genotypic data, which will maximise the predictive capacity of the prediction models.

Source: Journal of Agriculture and Food Research

DOI: 10.1016/j.jafr.2025.102296