Field Crop 2025, Vol.8, No.2, 82-92 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/fc 88 markers and should be treated differently. The most practical aspect is that these markers can be used for early screening. Without waiting until the harvest season, it is possible to predict which plants have greater potential at the seedling stage. Of course, mark-assisted selection is not a panacea. The field performance is ultimately determined, but at least it significantly narrates the screening range, saving time and effort. Figure 2 Schematic representation of the polyploid QTL-seq in potato (Adopted from Yamakawa et al., 2021) 6.2 Integration of QTLs with traditional breeding methods Combining QTL positioning with traditional breeding is like giving veteran farmers a pair of high-tech glasses-it not only retains their accumulated experience but also adds a pair of "sharp eyes". Previously, to select early-maturing varieties, one had to wait until the end of the entire growing season. Now, by detecting those key loci (Korontzis et al., 2020), the seedling stage can be predicted with about 90% accuracy. The screening for late blight resistance is more obvious. Previously, it was necessary to build a dedicated disease garden to inocalize pathogenic bacteria. Now, with the help of consensus map data, the first round of screening can be completed in the laboratory. However, the veterans always remind us that no step of the trait observation that should be done in the field can be omitted, because some QTLS show unstable performance under different genetic backgrounds. The most successful case is the introduction of disease-resistant QTLS identified through meta-analysis into superior varieties, which not only retains the original high-yield characteristics but also enhances the resistance. This "walking on two legs" strategy is indeed much more reliable than choosing solely based on phenotypes.
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