2012 Annual Report 1a.Objectives (from AD-416): 1. Association mapping of beta-glucan content and in elite oat germplasm and replicated comparison of phenotypic with marker-assisted selection. 2. Association mapping of beta-glucan content from the National Plant Germplasm System: complementation of elite oat. 3. Educational initiatives to pipeline students into plant breeding and to educate professionals. 1b.Approach (from AD-416): Apply association analysis to a population of elite oat lines tested. 200 lines from each tail of the distribution to genotypewith the marker system will be picked. Data for association alaysis of barley beta-glucan content will be obtained from the barley CAP and analyzed, providing a first source of candidate sequences. An Interactive distance short course will be developed. 3.Progress Report: Genomic selection for beta-glucan concentration in elite oat germplasm: Two cycles of selection using each of three methods (phenotypic, marker-assisted, and genomic selection) were completed. Each method was also replicated twice such that six breeding programs were in fact implemented. We found that all replicates of selection that used markers generated greater gain than either of the two replicates of phenotypic selection. Furthermore, greater genetic variance was maintained in programs that use markers than in the phenotypic selection programs. A manuscript will shortly be submitted on these results. Association genetics of beta-glucan concentration in a global collection of oat: Association mapping of beta-glucan concentration has now been completed in a global oat collection and in an elite North-American collection. In both cases sequence similarity of associated markers to rice sequence was used to target plausible candidate genes. Map position of associated markers was also related to positions of QTL identified in bi-parental mapping. These efforts generated two publications. Education efforts in modern molecular breeding: Iowa State University Department of Agronomy Distance Education Program will be using an outline for a course on association methods in plant breeding developed by this project.