Soybean phenotyping: ideotypes for organic breeding

The creation of focused breeding programs for organic farming systems was encouraged by the expanding market for organic farming. Breeding efforts are being stimulated by the rising demand for soybean varieties that are appropriate for organic farming in order to better meet the unique needs of those involved in the organic value chain. Within the ECOBREED project, extensive phenotyping on 200 soybean genotypes is carried out across contrasting environments in three countries, i.e. Austria, Romania and Serbia, which will enable the identification of useful traits (variation) and the level of local adaptation of genotypes. The following traits are assessed: yield and yield supportive traits, crop growth related traits, grain quality traits, plant architecture. Multi-trait genotype-ideotype distance index (MGIDI) implemented for genotypes selection, based on multiple traits. Classical linear multi-trait selection indices are available, but multi-collinearity and arbitrary weighting coefficient selection may erode genetic gains while