Design of Reference Populations for Genomic Selection in Crossbreeding Programs

In crossbreeding (CB) programs, genomic selection offers the opportunity to make efficient use of information on crossbreds in the selection of purebred candidates (PB). In a deterministic simulation study, we evaluated the use of various proportions of crossbred animals in a reference population for genomic selection of purebred animals used in a crossbreeding program. When the breeding objective is to improve crossbred performance, the optimal proportion of CB in the reference population is 100% unless the correlation between purebred and crossbred performance is high. However, the value of replacing purebred animals with crossbred animals in the reference population is generally small unless the correlation between purebred and crossbred performance is relatively low (< 0.7) or when purebred performance is not considered in the breeding objective.