The 2012 ASHS Annual Conference

The mission of RosBREED, a multi-state, multi-institutional, multi-national project dedicated to the genetic improvement of Rosaceae crops in the U.S., is to integrate modern genomics tools with traditional breeding approaches to transform crop improvement and significantly improve the profitability of U.S. Rosaceae crop industries. Within the vast repertoire of genetic information in crop genomes, individual marker–locus–trait associations are being discovered that control critical production and fruit quality traits. With the involvement of the U.S. Rosaceae research community, RosBREED has enabled the application of this genetic information to inform breeding decisions. These trait locus discoveries are being described as “jewels in the genome”, where the traits have high value to industry sectors and consumers and the influencing loci can be directly monitored by breeders. The analogy embodies the process of finding promising gems and polishing them into “jewels”. This workshop focuses on describing the functional alleles for these jewels (i.e., their facets) and showcases new software tools that are enabling effective use of this knowledge.