Congress of Genetics Applied to Livestock Production The Effect of Using Genomic Breeding Values to Manage the Loss in Response to Selection Caused by Genotype by Environment Interactions

Genotype by environment (GxE) interaction can reduce genetic gain because there is often insufficient information for accurate selection in each environment. Genomic selection may be a useful method to reduce the impact of GxE interaction as measurement in different environments may be propagated over more selection candidates. We compared the value of testing the performance of relatives and/or genomic breeding values across environments to increase genetic gain when GxE was present. Selection based on genomic breeding values (GEBVs), that were calibrated in the commercial environment and 60% accurate, increased genetic gain by 14% over recording 20 half siblings in that environment. When GEBVs were 80% accurate they were equivalent to testing 20 Progeny in the commercial environment. Even when the breeding objective was for performance in two environments, it was more beneficial to use a GEBV based on information from the commercial environment.