Blog

  • Dr. Lin Song

    Former lab member Lin Song defended her PhD dissertation in August 2023 and participated in the December 2023 commencement. During her final year in the lab, Lin was supported by the WPVGA Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. Part of her dissertation has been published, and we are preparing a manuscript about the efficacy of genomic prediction…

  • Visit by Drs. Hosaka & Sanetomo

    In August 2023, Drs. Yoshi Hosaka and Rena Sanetomo visited the Endelman Lab following their trip to the annual meeting of the Potato Association of America. They are both professors at Obihiro University in Japan. Dr. Hosaka was a visiting scientist at UW-Madison in the 1990’s, studying the genetics of self-compatibility in diploid potato with…

  • R/StageWise Software

    In 2011 I released the rrBLUP software, which became popular for genomic selection because it was easy to use (and free). But realistic breeding datasets, with multiple traits and unbalanced multi-environment trials, require more complex models than are possible in rrBLUP. R package StageWise was developed to go beyond the capabilities of most specialized software…

  • Portage Russet

    In November 2022, the SpudPro committee selected the name ‘Portage Russet’ for W13A11229-1rus. The name honors Portage County and has additional significance because ‘portage’ means carrying a boat between two bodies of water. Similarly, Portage Russet is a dual-purpose variety, able to meet the needs of both the fresh and frozen processing markets. FY2 seed…

  • Farm to Flavor 2022

    We had an opportunity to showcase two advanced specialty lines with purple skin/yellow flesh at Madison’s 2022 Farm to Flavor Event. This annual event pairs plant breeders with chefs to showcase the culinary attributes of new varieties.   Pictured above is Rue Genger, a researcher engaged in participatory research for organic production of several crops,…

  • Genetic architectures of vine and skin maturity

    Our manuscript about the genetic architectures of vine and skin maturity is now available in the journal Theoretical and Applied Genetics. Using new software for genetic analysis of multi-parental tetraploid populations (PolyOrigin, diaQTL), we were able to connect statistical alleles from QTL modeling with biological alleles from whole-genome sequencing. .           …