Prospects of Marker-Assisted Recurrent Selection: Current Insights and Future Implications

The long-term goal of a breeder is to increase genetic variation by bringing desirable genes from natural populations into the breeding population. With the advancement in genomics, molecular marker tools have become the breeder’s choice for genotypic selection, facilitating quick and reliable selection of individuals in the segregating populations. Various marker-assisted breeding (MAB) strategies are needed in different crop systems for the rapid development of cultivars. The advancement of genomic resources has led to the development of multi-parent and multi-trait improvement strategies such as marker-assisted gene pyramiding (MAGP), marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS), and genomic selection (GS). MARS is an important population improvement method that focuses on cyclically choosing and enriching favorable alleles from biparental or multiparent introgression at several loci. MARS begins with a heterogeneous base population and exploits superior recombinants during each cycle to produce a broad-based improved population, an inbred line or a hybrid. Realizing the MARS potentiality, various public and private sectors have successfully applied it in many commercial crops. Here we present the merits of MARS with other marker-assisted selection schemes, the procedure involved, and key factors to be considered for its successful implementation.