Gene annotation remains a huge bottleneck in genomics but @pomics.bsky.social & Meg Staton's group at Tennessee have put together an awesome fast and accurate pipeline! Thrilled to have contributed to this awesome team effort. Check out the preprint here 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I still have many of these historic Mich US #pears lines in my collection. Unfortunately 504 is not one of them.

michigan u.s. 504 pears, painted by l. c. c. krieger, 1936

Development of Rosaceae Crop-Specific Nanopore Models for Community Use Through the Genome Database for Rosaceae https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.23.660393v1

A wild collected, possible F1 or F2 progeny in our wild #apple germplasm collection have exhibited flowering in just their third year! Other apple also exhibited short juvenile periods but this one is a big windfall for our #prebreeding program specifically. I even got it to set controlled crosses.

The crossing seasons been busy this year! Lots of successful crosses in our pre-breeding #apple program! Some of these crosses represent our fourth, fifth or later generations of our decade old program! Cheers to wide crosses and breaking down the interrelatedness that’s rampant in apple cultivars!

Starting a Friday on leave with a paper acceptance

Red-fleshed #pears are so cool #redfleshedpears

Think of better times during the fall #apples #pears

Meh

One of my favorites

What was classified as a potential #rootstock turns outs to have great fruit quality. Stems are too long but hey you can’t always win the #genetic lottery #pears #plantbreeding

Some cool fungal genomics work I participated in www.mdpi.com/2309-608X/11...

The ARS in Corvallis, OR is looking for a new horticulturist/geneticist to work on the tree and nut crops at their location. As the site of the pear germplasm, you'd get work with me! The pear breeding program relies heavily on the curatorial efforts from this location. www.usajobs.gov/job/824903300

Big ol’ fan of this variety and its synonym ‘Kyle’s Sugar’. It maybe small but it packs a sugary punch!

In #Yakima, WA for a meeting for the first time and the aroma of #hops is strong (in the best possible way)

Out in the Pacific Northwest, home to one of my favorite wild #apples - #Malusfusca! Having spent more than a decade working with fusca and its hybrids, it was really fun to co-lead the effort to resolve the first North American wild apple species #genome with @bmansfeld.bsky.social.

lowland raspberry apples, painted by royal charles steadman, 1927

Trying out the new AI gene annotation tool today!

Still one of my most favorite traits to find in #pome fruit #redflesh #redfleshedapple #redfleshedpear #otterson #apple #pear #cider #rosé

First post on #bluesky figured I’d share our most advanced #pear selection! #plantbreeding #pome #fruit