BREEDING METHODS AND SELECTION INDEXES FOR IMPROVED TOLERANCE TO BIOTIC AND ABIOTIC STRESSES IN COOL-SEASON FOOD LEGUMES

The objective of breeding for stress tolerance is to improve productivity for a target level of stress. If tolerance is viewed as resistance to change in productivity with increasing stress, productivity under stress depends not only on stress tolerance, but also on maximum productivity. Index selection theory indicates that selection in non-stress environments will be more effective than direct selection for productivity under stress whenever the correlation between the two types of environments exceeds the heritability of productivity under stress. With high genetic correlation, selection should be conducted within a level of stress that maximizes heritability. In cases where heritability under non-stress is much higher than under stress, an index combining data from stress and non-stress environments is expected to be more efficient than selection based on evaluation only within stress environments. Secondary traits will be useful in breeding for productivity under stress whenever they have high heritability and high genetic correlation with productivity under stress. For some abiotic stresses and many biotic stresses, heritability will be highest in the presence of stress and indirect or index selection will be of limited value.