APPLYING PANGENOMICS TO POLYPLOID BREEDING PROGRAMS USING BLUEBERRY AS A MODEL

The goal of this project is to use blueberry as a complicated polyploid species to model how pangenomics can be directly used in a specific and productive breeding program.My specific aims are:Produce a high-quality pangenome of blueberry cultivars from the UGA breeding programUtilize the genomes and phenotyping data from UGA to pinpoint the underlying genes for late flowering time, fruit development time, and berry sizeDevelop markers that can be used in UGA's blueberry breeding program.A robust bioinformatic pipeline for polyploid pangenome and marker association analysis will be generated.The discoveries from this project will positively impactnot only accelerating blueberry breeding but also extending the practical application of pangenomics to other polyploid crop species.