Combining ability of banana triploid hybrid progenitors and genomic prediction of cross performance for agro-morphological traits

Data Availability Statement: All phenotypic and genotypic data underlying this study are available from the following CIRAD Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.18167/DVN1/YSM8R7, including the vcf file “ParentVcf_filt.vcf.gz”, the pedigree information and raw phenotypic data for all traits in “rawPhenotyping_2723hybrids_23traits.csv”. Raw GBS data are available in the SRA database (PRJNA1252056).This work has been realized with the support of MESO@LR-Platform at the University of Montpellier and the South Green Bioinformatics Platform (CIRAD), member of the French Institute of Bioinformatics (IFB).

International audience

English. Breeding disease-resistant cultivars that meet commercial criteria is essential to sustain banana production threatened by major diseases. Edible bananas are seedless triploid hybrids which represent end-breeding products. Hence, the crucial step in banana breeding is to improve and combine the parents. Currently, little information is available on parental combining abilities and on the inheritance of major traits to effectively guide banana breeding strategies. In this study, a breeding population of 2723 triploids individuals resulting from multiparental diploidtetraploid crosses was characterized during three crop cycles for 23 traits relating to plant and fruit architecture and bunch yield components. The phenotypic variance was partitioned between non-genetic and genetic effects, the latter including the general combining ability of diploid and tetraploid parents, their specific combining ability and additional variance due to the within-cross genetic variability. Heritability was moderate to high depending on the trait and revealed the predominance of the tetraploid parent's contribution to hybrid performance for most traits. The use of parental genomic information enabled cross mean performance prediction through genomic relationship matrices of general and specific combining abilities, the latter being partitioned into dominance and acrosspopulation epistasis contributions. Predictive abilities often greater than 0.5 were obtained, particularly when the tetraploid parent was observed in other crosses and, for some traits, when neither parent was observed. Information on trait inheritance and genomic prediction of cross mean performance will help selecting and combining parents, facilitating the identification of promising hybrids.