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Article|16 Mar 2026|OPEN
MMGS: a novel genomic prediction framework to integrate genotype, environment and their interactions for multi-environment breeding trials
Mingjia Zhu1 , Zeyu Zheng1,2 , Wei Liu3 , Yu Han3 , Wenjie Mou4 , Tongming Yin5 , Xiaogang Dai5 , Huaitong Wu5 , Yongzhi Yang1 and Yanjun Zan6,7 , , Jianquan Liu,1 ,
1State Key Laboratory of Herbage Innovation and Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
2Yazhouwan National Laboratory (YNL), Sanya, Hainan, China
3College of Life Sciences, China Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
4Departamento de Ciencias Agrarias y del Medio Natural, Escuela Politecnica Superior de Huesca, Universidad de Zaragoza, Huesca 22071, Spain
5College of Forestry, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
6Integrated Science Lab, Department of Plant Physiology, Umeå Plant Science Center, Umeå University, Umeå 90736, Sweden
7Tobacco Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Qingdao, China
*Corresponding author. E-mail: zanyanjun@caas.cn,liujq@nwipb.ac.cn

Horticulture Research 13,
Article number: uhag035 (2026)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhag035
Views: 14

Received: 10 Sep 2025
Accepted: 27 Jan 2026
Published online: 16 Mar 2026

Abstract

Accurately predicting the performance of trees and crops across diverse and changing climates is essential for matching genotypes to both current and future environments. Yet modelling the complex interplay among genotype, environment, and phenotype in multi-environment trials remains a major challenge. Here, we introduce a unified framework, polygenic environmental interaction (PEI), directly models genotype-by-environment interactions through integrating genotypes and environmental covariates. We implemented an ensemble of 15 estimators spanning parametric, non-parametric, and machine-learning approaches. We then benchmarked our framework against the classical reaction norm (RN) using three genetically distinct populations and three traits with variable genetic architectures. Furthermore, we released an open-source R package, Multiple-environments genomic selection (MMGS), on GitHub. Together, our study offers a flexible and computationally efficient approach for multi-environment genomic prediction, enhancing breeding efficiency, providing deeper insights into modelling the genotype-environment-phenotype continuum.