During her industrial PhD project, Charlotte Damsgård Robertsen studied the use of pedigree and genetic markers to increase selection accuracy for yield and malting quality in winter barley breeding. Her analysis used a combination of simulated and empirical data from the breeding program at Sejet Plant Breeding I/S. She obtained promising results for implementing genomic assisted selection for yield in early trial stages by using a combination of pedigree and genetic markers, including populations where not all individuals are genotyped.

She also performed genome-wide association studies on malting quality and identified genetic markers linked to five different malting quality traits. The outputs included a set of markers that maximized the explained phenotypic variance across traits, and this set is already taken into use in the breeding program.

The industrial PhD study was completed at Sejet Plant Breeding I/S and Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics (QGG), Faculty of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University.

This summary was prepared by the PhD student.

Time: Wednesday 7 October 2020 at 9.00
Place: Building 8814, room 3075, Auditorium Foulum, Blichers Allé 20, Tjele. The PhD defence will also be online. To receive a link to the event, please send an e-mail to Louise Fischer Koue: lfkoue@qgg.au.dk.
Title of PhD thesis: Genomic Selection for yield and malting quality in winter barley.
Contact information: Charlotte Damsgård Robertsen, e-mail: cdr@sejet.dk, tel.: +45 23395768
Members of the assessment committee:
Dr. Luke Ramsay, James Hutton Institute, Invergowrie, UK
Dr. Henri Heuven, Genetwister Technologies, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Professor dr Just Jensen (chair), Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics (QGG), Aarhus University.
Main supervisor:
Professor Luc Janss, Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics (QGG), Aarhus University.
Rasmus Lund Hjortshøj, Sejet Plant Breeding I/S.
Co-supervisor:
Lene Krusell, Sejet Plant Breeding I/S.
Language: The PhD dissertation will be defended in English

The defence is public.

Due to the coronavirus situation, the PhD thesis will not be available for reading at the offices of the PhD administration. Instead, interested parties may send an e-mail to gradschool.tech@au.dk to receive a digital copy of the PhD thesis. Please note, it may in certain cases be necessary to make an individual arrangement to read the PhD thesis.