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Apart from being able to have an accurately estimated breeding value already at very young age, genomic selection is especially useful for selection on traits that are expensive to measure accurately because only a relatively limited number of phenotypes are sufficient to improve the EBV of many animals. Even though genomic selection does allow for selection without phenotypic information of the animal itself or on close relative, the accuracy of selection still is also determined by the accuracy of the recording of the phenotype. Especially in the reference population the recording of the phenotypes should be done as accurately as possible because those phenotypes are used for selection of the rest of the population through their associations with the SNP. Inaccurate phenotypes result in suboptimal estimations of association between SNP and phenotypes, and thus in suboptimal estimated gEBV. Remember, the effect of inaccurate observations is directly reflected in the size of the heritability, and that effect is illustrated in the figure 8above.
It is possible to combine genomic and conventional breeding value estimation. Phenotypic information on the animal or its relatives will add to the accuracy of the gEBV. Details on how that would add go beyond the scope of this course.
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