Running the markers
Earlier we explained the development of markers. More and more of these markers are published in literature, including the sequences that should be used for the primers. Such published markers can be tested in the lab, whether they work well in the material of interest. After a breeder has tested markers and chosen the presumably most suitable ones, (based on putative genetic distance to the gene of interest and on polymorphism and possibly co-dominance) he may need to determine the marker segregation in one or more large plant progenies, and associate it with the trait of interest. This is called 'running the marker'. High-throughput systems are available to run SNP markers on SNP arrays. The scoring of large numbers of markers on hundreds or thousands of plants can be outsourced to specialized companies.