AbstractGplusE is a strategy for genomic selection in which the accuracy of assessment in the reference population for a primary trait such as yield is increased by the incorporation of data from high‐ throughput field phenotyping platforms. This increase in precision comes from both exploiting genetic relationships between traits and reducing the effect of environmental influences upon them. We describe a collaborative project among researchers and breeders to develop a large reference population of elite UK wheat lines. This will be used to test the method, to study the design of the reference population, and to test genotyping strategies and imputation methods. Finally, it will provide data to pump‐prime the application of genomic selection to UK winter wheat breeding.