Intercross: An Android app for plant breeding and genetics cross management

TL;DR

Intercross is an open-source Android app designed to digitize and simplify the management of plant breeding crosses, aiming to improve accuracy and integration into digital breeding workflows.

Contribution

The paper introduces Intercross, a flexible, easy-to-use Android application that standardizes and digitizes cross management in plant breeding programs.

Findings

Facilitates rapid adoption across diverse breeding programs

Reduces errors associated with manual data entry

Supports integration into digital breeding ecosystems

Abstract

Plant breeding is fundamentally comprised of three cyclic activities: 1) intermating lines to generate novel allelic combinations, 2) evaluation of new plant cultivars in distinct environments, and 3) selection of superior individuals to be used as parents in the next breeding cycle. While digital technologies and tools are commonly utilized for the latter two stages, many plant research programs still rely on manual annotation and paper tags to track the crosses that constitute the basis of a plant breeding program. This presence of analog data is a crack in the foundation of a digital breeding ecosystem and a significant occasion for errors to be introduced that will propagate through the entire breeding program. However, implementing digital cross tracking into breeding programs is difficult due to the non-standardized workflows that different breeders have adopted. Intercross, an open-source Android app, aims to provide scientists with a robust and simple solution for planning, tracking, and managing the crosses being made each season and aims to serve as the primary tool to digitize crossing data for breeding programs. The simplicity and flexibility of Intercross allows rapid and broad adoption by diverse breeding programs and will solidify the concepts of a digital breeding ecosystem.