Science requires deliberate conversations and clarifications. When researchers connect with their communities to reflect on experiments, approaches, and processes, it strengthens and enriches research areas and builds consensus. G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics provides a unique platform through Dialogue and Debate articles to encourage scientists to share their viewpoints on timely topics and offer the best solutions to problems faced by their communities.

Recent Dialogue and Debate articles spotlight important perspectives related to breeding. Modern breeding efforts are vital in this era of climate change. From protecting species to growing resilient plants and livestock to achieve global food security, conventional breeding pipelines must continually evolve to meet human needs in conservation and sustainability. The articles discuss why plant and animal breeding communities must learn from each other and how multimodal approaches can improve genetic gain and increase yield.

Different strokes: Plant versus animal animal breeding

Rex Bernardo is a plant breeder whose Dialogue and Debate article published in the August G3 issue outlines similarities and key differences between animal and plant breeding. He advocates for dialogue between plant and animal breeding communities to learn about different processes that facilitate transitioning from plant to animal breeding, and vice versa.

Bernardo and Miguel Pérez-Enciso highlight two key differences between the way plants and animals are bred:  First, a plant progeny from breeding could be exactly the same as the parent through self-pollination of homozygous lines or through asexual propagation. In contrast, an animal breeder can never obtain a progeny that is genetically identical to the parent(s).

The second key difference pertains to interactions with the environment. “When a cow is thirsty, it goes to the water, but when a corn plant is thirsty, it stays thirsty,” explained Bernardo. Because plants cannot move, they interact a lot with the environment and are shaped by environmental influences. Because of this, breeders need to keep evaluating the same plant in different environments.

Bernardo stresses that these differences define plant and animal breeding fields, and both fields can grow from borrowing or adapting ideas and approaches from each other. “For example, more animal breeders are switching to plant breeding, where they use their strong foundation in advanced statistical approaches for genetic evaluation, benefitting plant breeding efforts,” said Bernardo. 

Embracing effective data integration and multimodality

Plant breeding now operates in a data-rich environment where the community has integrated genomics, phenomics, and enviromics models into conventional methods. In this context, Alison Bentley and colleagues pinpoint how unimodels and the lack of data integration are still main challenges in modern plant breeding.

Plant traits under selection in breeding arise from the complex interactions between genes, environmental factors, and plant biology. A genomic model largely overlooks environmental effects, whereas enviromics models don’t rank genotypes effectively. Additionally, phenotype-based models capture only a snapshot of response. “Therefore, multimodality is a necessary evolution in genomic prediction and breeding. With increasing environmental complexity, multimodality will allow breeders to make better selection decisions that reflect true biological effects and environmental responses underpinning performance,” suggested Bentley.

Importantly, multimodality requires new statistical and quantitative genetics approaches. Multimodality encodes different data types (also known as modalities) according to their biological structure and then integrates them. “This is not a trivial task. We have diverse data streams available that must be effectively integrated to deliver maximum value of predictive modern breeding that links explicitly to plant biology,” emphasized Bentley. 

Breeders remain at the heart of solving challenges in food security and conservation. Recent Dialogue and Debate articles emphasize the need for knowledge transfer between communities and the adoption of multi-dimensional data and complex computational methodologies to maximize gains in breeding.

References

  • Pérez-Enciso M., Rex B., A guide to plant breeding for animal breeders. G3:Genes|Genomes|Genetics, May 2026, 16(5). https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkag059 

  • Crossa J., Montesinos-López A., Cuevas J., et al.  Multimodal genomic prediction is not a buzzword: why modern plant breeding must integrate genomics, enviromics, and phenomics. G3:Genes|Genomes|Genetics, July 2026, 16(7) https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkag110

Sejal Davla is a freelance science writer and data scientist with expertise in neuroscience and genetics. She is a motivated storyteller and works on projects at the intersection of science, data, and policy.

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