Genomic Selection for Climate-Resilient Wheat Breeding: Opportunities and Challenges in Pakistan

Wheat production in Pakistan faces unprecedented challenges from climate change-induced abiotic stresses, including rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, and widespread soil salinity, which collectively threaten national food security. Genomic selection has emerged as a transformative breeding approach that utilizes genome-wide markers to predict breeding values and accelerate genetic gain for complex polygenic traits. This review synthesizes current advancements in genomic selection methodologies and evaluates their applicability within Pakistan's diverse agro-ecological zones. We examine the physiological responses of wheat to drought, heat, and salinity stress, highlighting the polygenic architecture of tolerance mechanisms that make them ideally suited for genomic prediction approaches. Studies demonstrate that genomic selection can achieve prediction accuracies of 0.5–0.6 for grain yield under stressed environments, with multi-trait models incorporating high-throughput phenotyping data improving accuracy by up to 67% compared to univariate approaches. The integration of environmental covariates and genotype-by-environment interactions further enhances predictive ability across variable climatic conditions. Despite promising results, successful implementation in Pakistan requires addressing critical barriers, including limited phenotyping capacity, high genotyping costs, insufficient training population sizes, and the need for robust statistical models adapted to local germplasm. Strategic investments in infrastructure, capacity building, and collaborative networks between national and international research institutions are essential to harness the full potential of genomic selection for developing climate-resilient wheat varieties tailored to Pakistan's vulnerable production systems.