Hello,

Over the past years, we have been accumulating data from public sector wheat breeding programs and transferring them to T3/Wheat.  It's time to find out whether this accumulated data can help generate good predictions.

Let the T3 Predictathon begin!

The objective will be to use data available on The Triticeae Toolbox (T3/Wheat) to predict yield performance of wheat accessions in 9 separate test trials across the USA. Important metadata for these trials is on T3/Wheat, but the phenotypes measured in them are not.  For all of these trials, genotypic data is available, though it is somewhat messy: 1. Not all accessions in the trial are genotyped; 2. Different genotyping protocols have been used in different trials.

NOTE: New data (in particular genotypic data) will be posted to T3/Wheat during the contest period. It will be valuable to recheck before the competition closes to assemble final training data.

A presentation describing useful methods of programmatic access to T3 to facilitate algorithm development will be given at PAG in the Breedbase Workshop Sunday, January 11, 2026.

The competition will close on Friday, March 13th, 2026.

WheatCAP is in part premised on the notion that many small breeding programs can be networked to create scales that increase rates of improvement at each program. WheatCAP has made strides to strengthen the network of wheat breeders nationally. Is data sharing a useful area of cooperation among programs? Data sharing leads each breeding program to have more data to work with for genomic prediction.  The purpose of the competition is to discover what prediction accuracies are possible.

Following the competition, a manuscript describing the competition process and the algorithms used will be submitted to G3. All contestants are welcome to be co-authors on that manuscript.

Prizes for teams composed only of students: First: $500, Second $300, Third $200.

For full details, visit: https://wheat.triticeaetoolbox.org/guides/t3-prediction-challenge

- The Triticeae Toolbox