AMES, Iowa – Iowa State University (ISU) scientists are working with plant breeders to look for approaches that can efficiently improve crop performance.

“Genomic selection is an important part of the answer,” said Jianming Yu, ISU professor of agronomy, Pioneer Distinguished Chair in Maize Breeding and director of ISU’s Raymond F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding.

Genomic selection (GS) is a plant breeding strategy designed to predict measurable traits, studying the relationships between a plant’s genetic makeup and its phenotypes to build models that can better predict performance, the researchers said.

The process increases the capacity to evaluate more individual crops and shortens the time required for breeding cycles, the researchers added. It can be used for multiple purposes, including exploring genetic diversity, selecting breeding parents for desired traits, and choosing genetics adapted to future predicted conditions by incorporating environmental variables.

A recent paper entitled, Genomic Selection: Essence, Applications and Prospects, in the scientific journal, The Plant Genome, reviewed GS as part of a special section on crop genetics, genomics and biotechnology. The lead author, Diana Escamilla, a former post-doctoral researcher in Yu’s lab, is now a crop breeding specialist in private industry.

“It was exciting to be invited to write this paper to help people understand genomic selection, why it’s important, and how it is evolving,” she said. “As in the title, we try to capture the essence of genomic selection and explain how the strategy can allow breeders to more quickly and accurately respond to the needs of farmers and a growing human population.”

Yu told Farm World the desire to study GS traces all the way back to when DNA finger printing was developed decades ago: “Researchers always wanted to see how we can determine a plant’s genetic potential quickly with DNA molecular markers to reduce the needs of growing it out until the end of the season to see how well it performs. If that is possible, it would greatly improve the breeding efficiency.”

He said with much improved genomic technology around the year 2000, the ability to obtain a large number of molecular markers across a set of genetic materials was becoming a reality: “Groundbreaking methodology research in animal science demonstrated in 2001 that it was possible to establish a prediction model with a set of training individuals and then use this model to make predictions about other individuals.”

He said plant breeders can use the predicted values to make selection decisions. “In plants, the combination of doubled haploid and other technologies associated with tissue sampling, sequencing and genotyping facilitated the initiation of genomic selection research.” Haploid is a plant breeding technique that uses haploid cells to rapidly produce genetically uniform, homozygous lines in just a few generations.

“This was first shown in two scientific papers, one in 2007 and another in 2009,” he added. “From then, research and implementation of genomic selection have been widely conducted in both public and private sectors.”

He said GS increases the evaluation capacity of breeding programs and reduces the time needed to develop new cultivars, leading to faster crop improvement.

“Genomic selection can be used for exploring genetic diversity, selecting breeding parents, or selecting individuals at different stages of the breeding cycle,” he said. “Genomic selection is continuously evolving due to technological advances, research innovations, and emerging challenges in agriculture.”

Throughout history, he said, different innovations have been made to increase efficiency of the breeding process, where breeders can identify unique individuals with higher yield, stronger disease resistance, or better nutrition from thousands of plant candidates.

“Genomic selection is regarded as a major innovation in crop breeding,” he said. “To help speed up breeding programs and help agriculture meet future challenges, researchers and crop breeders work on all three aspects – technology, analytics and design – to come up with solutions to enhance the breeding process and improved cultivars for agricultural production.”

The review paper’s importance was also recognized in an article in the November 2025 issue of the American Society of Agronomy-Crop Science Society of America-Soil Science Society of America newsletter that shares insights on GS from several of the field’s leaders, including Escamilla and Yu.

In spring 2026, Escamilla will return to the ISU campus to lead a seminar on genomic selection and its future, to be hosted by the ISU Department of Agronomy and ISU’s Raymond F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding.