Accelerating Almond Breeding in Post-genomic Era

Classical almond breeding is a long process due to its plurennial woody character and long juvenile period. The implementation of marker-assisted selection has had a significant impact in almond breeding programs for some simple monogenic traits. However, the last advances in genomic technologies enable now to introduce new approaches to support the improvement of quantitative traits in which only the phenotypic selection has been used up to now. Genomic selection has been explored in other Prunus and nut species being a promising approach for achieving higher rates of genetic gain per unit of time and cost. The current almond breeding cycle could evolve toward a scheme adapted to genomic selection to increase the efficiency in almond breeding programs and accelerate the genetic gain.