The Possibility of Use of AFLP Molecular Markers and Phenotypic Traits to Increase Forage Yield in Tall Fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) Breeding

Tall fescue is an out-crossing allohexaploid grass species extensively used for forage and turf worldwide. Cultivars of outbreeding forage grasses such as tall fescue are usually synthetic populations derived from intercrossing several selected parents using the polycross method. In this study, the application of AFLP molecular markers to optimize genetic diversity in a polycross breeding program of tall fescue was evaluated. For both phenotypic characters and AFLP molecular markers, two polycrosses of six parental plants with contrasting levels of genetic diversity were composed. A fifth polycross population was composed using six genotypes with the highest general combining ability. The results of this study showed that marker assistant parental selection produced superior progenies, indicating that selection based on molecular marker diversity may be an appropriate means to improve first generation progenies of tall fescue. This may be mainly useful in large breeding programs because the identification of diversity based on phenotypic traits is time consuming and may be influenced by environmental effects.