Identification of founding accessions and patterns of relatedness and inbreeding derived from historical pedigree data in a white clover germplasm collection in New Zealand

Abstract

White clover is the most important legume to temporal pastoral systems. The pasture mix of white clover and ryegrass dominates New Zealand pastures. However, despite over a century of breeding efforts, a pedigree analysis has never been performed on a white clover collection. The objectives of this study were (i) to create a pedigree map of the collection, (ii) to identify founding accessions and determine the effective number of founders, and (iii) to detect patterns affecting inbreeding and kinship.