Scalable medium-density genotyping platforms for cultivar identification, pedigree authentication, marker-assisted and genomic selection, and other applications in strawberry.
A broad spectrum of high-density genotyping approaches, including single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays, genotyping-by-sequencing, and whole-genome reduced-representation sequencing, have been shown to perform well in strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa), despite the inherent complexity of the octoploid genome. While these approaches are effective, their routine deployment in breeding programs can be constrained by cost, computational requirements, and workflow complexity. In parallel, many breeding programs continue to rely on locus-specific assays for marker-assisted selection, resulting in fragmented and inefficient genotyping strategies. Here, we describe medium-density amplicon-based genotyping platforms for strawberry designed to provide cost-effective, turnkey solutions that integrate markers used for marker-assisted selection with genome-wide markers suitable for genomic prediction in a single laboratory assay. These platforms were developed by targeting 1,650 or 4,811 target SNPs via amplicon sequencing, and are interoperable with existing high-density genotyping resources, including a widely used 50K SNP array, thereby facilitating data integration across platforms. We benchmarked their performance relative to the 50K SNP array across breeding-relevant applications, including identity and purity testing, pedigree authentication, marker-assisted selection, and genomic selection, and further evaluated the feasibility of genotype imputation to enhance genome-wide information content. Across analyses, the 1,650- and 4,811-amplicon platforms produced results comparable to higher-density platforms while substantially reducing genotyping cost and analytical overhead. This work demonstrates that targeted amplicon-based genotyping can support efficient, scalable, and integrated genome-informed breeding, enabling the routine application of both marker-assisted and genomic selection within strawberry breeding workflows. Open-source R workflows are provided to support streamlined analyses in breeding contexts.