Fig. 1

Three-step approach to identify potential testers within pools. In Step 1, GCA effects for males (A₁, A₂, …, A₈) and females (B₁, B₂, …, B₈), and SCA effects for crosses (SCA_crosses) generated predictions for each family. In Step 2, GCA values for each of the 16 parents (males A_i and females B_i) were estimated based on the set of parents in the opposite pool. Finally, Step 3 identifies potential female or male testers based on GCA, SCA, and correlation (\(\rho\)) between the GCA obtained in STEP 1 and the GCA estimates from the subset of parent \(i\) (STEP 2). SCA_crosses.A and SCA_crosses.B are SCA estimates of the crosses for male A_i and female B_i, respectively.