An alternative to the GCA model with fixed group effects is an individual model with genetic groups accounted for in the pedigree rather than explicitly as a factor in the model. This alternative will produce directly a net breeding value that includes the group effect.
Furthermore, this alternative method is useful for later generations of progenies that may trace ancestry to more than one founder group. We need to create a pedigree file in order to include the genetic group information as part of the pedigree. This is done by including the genetic group identifiers at the beginning of the file, then indicating the group identifier as the male and female parents of the individuals in the first sampled generation from the genetic groups. The pedigree file (“pine_provenance_pedigree.txt”) appears as: