Genomic prediction of yield-related traits and genome-based establishment of heterotic pattern in maize hybrid breeding of Southwest China

When genomic prediction is implemented in breeding maize (Zea mays L.), it can accelerate the breeding process and reduce cost to a large extent. In this study, 11 yield-related traits of maize were used to evaluate four genomic prediction methods including rrBLUP, HEBLP|A, RF, and LightGBM. In all the 11 traits, rrBLUP had similar predictive accuracy to HEBLP|A, and so did RF to LightGBM, but rrBLUP and HEBLP|A outperformed RF and LightGBM in 8 traits. Furthermore, genomic prediction-based heterotic pattern of yield was established based on 64620 crosses of maize in Southwest China, and the result showed that one of the parent lines of the top 5% crosses came from temp-tropic or tropic germplasm, which is highly consistent with the actual situation in breeding, and that heterotic pattern (Reid+ x Suwan+) will be a major heterotic pattern of Southwest China in the future.