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Brad Foresman, M.S. and Ph.D.

My research focused on barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) tolerance in spring oat.  During my M.S. I examined the genetics for tolerance in two bi-parental recombinant inbred (RIL) populations where we identified several quantitative trait loci (QTL) including two large effect QTL.  During my Ph.D. we confirmed the two large effect QTL in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and identified six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that could be used in a marker-assisted selection (MAS) breeding approach.  We also examined the prospects and comparisons of various genomic selection and MAS models for BYDV tolerance breeding.  Currently, I am a soybean breeder for Dow AgroSciences in Olivia, MN. My role involves developing new high yielding and disease resistant varieties for maturities 0.6 to 1.9 as well as overseeing the seed finishing department for the northern breeding region.