Exemplary methods for use in identifying crosses for use in plant breeding aredisclosed. One exemplary method includesselecting a subgroup of potential crosses, based on thresholds associated withpopulation prediction scores for the set of potentialcrosses. The exemplary method further includes selecting multiple targetcrosses from the subgroup of potential crosses based on agenetic relatedness of the parents in the subgroup of potential crosses,filtering the target crosses based on a rule (or rules) defining athreshold (or thresholds) for at least one characteristic and/or trait,selecting ones of the filtered target crosses based on risk associatedwith the selected one of the filtered target crosses, and directing theselected ones of the filtered target crosses into a breeding pipeline,thereby providing crosses to the breeding pipeline based, at least in part, oncommercial success of parents included in the selectedones of the filtered crosses.
