Lecturers: Silvia Vezzulli, Laura Costantini, Fabrizio Costa, Claudio Varotto

Summary: This course will present the most advanced frontiers in Plant Breeding, the science of creation, the fixation and selection of superior plant phenotypes. This course is organized in four modules for a total of 40 hours distributed in 20 lectures. The students will acquire knowledge about the principles undertaking the control of important agricultural traits and will be introduced to the several strategies to date available for a DNA-guided precise selection in different species, distinguished also by a different ploidy level. 

Module 1: Molecular markers and Marker-Assisted Selection (12 hours): it will introduce the basic concept of plant breeding and the genetic control of simple mendelian traits.

Skills acquired: knowledge of the types of molecular markers and their employment in Marker-Assisted Selection (MAS).

Module 2: Mapping of quantitative trait loci in experimental populations (8 hours): it will introduce the analysis of quantitative traits.

Skills acquired: use of molecular markers in constructing genetic linkage maps and in detecting quantitative trait loci (QTL) in progenies.

Module 3: Molecular dissection of complex traits in germplasm collection (12 hours): in the end, alternative methods of QTL mapping employing complex and more structured genetic background will be presented.

Skills acquired: Linkage Disequilibrium (LD) analysis and the detection of QTL through Association Study (AS) approaches, introducing to the principle of Genomic Selection (GS).

Course schedule

Registration procedure: in order to formally register in the course, please send an e-mail request to phd.aes@unitn.it

Evaluation procedure: presentation