I just recently started delving into the subject of plant breeding and the various methods of selection for the production of superior progeny. I have a background in biology and therefore have a basic understanding of how genetics works. I recently came across the concept of recurrent selection. I know that there are different forms of recurrent selection, such as recurrent phenotypic selection (or simple recurrent selection) & reciprocal recurrent selection. I have understood the concept of RPS, and how to apply this to practice, however, I can't seem to get my head around Reciprocal Recurrent Selection. All of the articles I have read are full of terminology such as GCA and SCA that I cannot fully understand. I would appreciate if someone would give me a simplified explanation of this concept. It would also be helpful if someone would give me a step by step instruction on how to apply this concept to practice.
Ok, I found this post on this forum that seems to be talking about Recurrent half-sib selection. Any comments guy? any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks lessismore, Feb 15, 2010 For the initial F1 generation, male selection is not as important b/c any male selected from the F1 generation will provide you the F2 offspring. The F1 mother is most important at this stage of the project. The selection of your F1 mother is most important on the F1 generation. When you grow out the offspring(F2 generation) this is where you begin your male selections for pollinating the F1 mother. The F2 generation is when the recessive traits are noticed, as are the more favorble traits. The sucessive generations of males are what will be used to pollinate the F1 female cuts. From the F2 generation on is where male selection becmes important. The only way to determine the value of a male plant for breeding is to grow and examine its progeny. The most potent plant might not pass on this trait, and the healthiest plant might not have favorable combining ability. Selecting a male by visual appearance, growth characteristics, and also by smoke testing; A.K.A. bio-assay. Bio-assay is using the plant material to determine the quality of the plant. Test crossing the male is the only way to fully determine it's breeding potential. This is why I often clone my selected mother so I can test various selected males. The offspring from these various selections will give you an idea of how well your selected males combined with the mother. Selection of males can be difficult. We often want to select the more vigorous males, however this is not always best. The more vigorous males tend to grow more feral which will carry over to the offspring. I select by characteristics in the growth and development. I look for males which grow more uniform and form well developed branching. I also look at leaf patterns, main stem structure, and how tight and/or dense the clusters of pollen sacks are. You also want to look for phenotypes present in the male which may favor those of the F1 mother. Remember, phenotype is 50% environment and 50% genotype. It is best to have a room for males, for you will want a nice selection to choose the fathers from. Remember, a "Holy Grail" female is present but 1/100, where "Holy Grail" male comes about 1/1000. So the more males you have to select from the F2 and each successive generation the better chances you have of finding that perfect fit which will be selfed into the resulting hybrid.