More Yield with GreenSelect

In ForageSelect we learned how to select the most superior offspring by its genetic potential. Next step will be to use genomic selection to also identify parents that have the best match. This task is already being undertaken in a new project, which  is called GreenSelect.

In order to reduce agricultural footprints on climate and environment this project focuses on three important traits:

• DM yield

• Forage digestibility

• Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE)

The overall aim is to increase farm gate profit with 0.26 € per cow per day, while reducing

• Methane emission from Danish dairy farms with 14,000 tons annually

          (336,000 tons CO2 equivalents)

• Nitrogen surplus from Danish pastures with 2,800 tons.

To reach these ambitious goals we will improve our current genomic selection system by

1) calculating specific combining abilities for parent plants through diallelic tests

2) add additional information to our DNA profiling (transcriptomics and metabolomics),

3) develop statistical modules that can take GxE interactions into account.

GreenSelect receives financial support from The Ministry of Environment and Food (GUDP) and runs until 2019.