COURSE OVERVIEW:
Level 1: R for the Plant Breeders, Scientists, Trial Specialists, Agronomists, and their teams
- Introduction, set-up, and workflows
This module aims to introduce Seed industry professionals to the world of R and to guide them through setting up their work environments, tools, and workflows. This course will use the power of RStudio and the plethora of tools in the Tidyverse to guide the student through the whole process from data collection, good practices on data organization, reporting, and everything in between, always with the goals of transparency and reproducibility. This module is for beginners and those that didn’t have a chance to use R often. Attending Level 1 to engage in level 2 in June and higher levels 3 and 4 in September and December is recommended.
This course is also a recommended prerequisite for UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy. As a bonus, if a student applies for the academy, and is accepted, then expenses for R Level 1 or any single E-Series would be waived.
Level 2: R for the Plan Breeder – Data exploration, visualization, and reporting basics
This Module builds from Module 1: Intro to R Markdown tool to create high quality dynamic reports and presentations with minimal efforts in a single, reproducible format, such as HMTL, PDF, Word, or slides. Data exploration and wrangling; ggplot; foundation statistics, model fitting, ANOVA, testing; intro to SpATS; digging through model outputs. Visualize, communicate, and influence!! “The simple graph has brought more information to the data analyst’s mind than any other device.” — John Tukey.
This course is a recommended prerequisite for UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy.
Level 3: R for the Plant Breeders & Scientists – Intermediate workflows and application in Plant Breeding and Research
With our Lead Instructor Jose Luis Rodriguez Gil, take your skills to the next level with our advanced module 3, tailored for plant breeders, scientists, and other seed industry specialists. With ggplot, desplot and more learn statistical problem-solving in plant breeding and enhance experimental designs. Special guests Ana-Maria Heilman and Didier Murillo from NDSU will showcase FielDHub—an innovative R Shiny app for designing experiments. Streamline traditional, augmented, and p-rep designs taking your breeding programs to more effective outcomes. As a bonus for all hybrid breeders, with our Lead Instructor set-up followed with data interpretation by our Director of Plant Breeding Academy Jovan Djordjevic we will explore Genetic Distance Analysis PCA in 3D with real SNP data, today an essential tool for constructing heterotic groups, maximizing hybrid vigor leading to new better and improved varieties. Enroll now in Level 3 RStudio for Plant Breeders & Scientists to elevate your analytical skills. Visit our website to secure your spot and shape the future of plant breeding!
Level 4: R for the Plant Breeders and Scientists – Advanced workflows and application in Plant Breeding and Research
This advanced module will demonstrate advanced and peer-reviewed applications for Plant Breeding. Our Lead Instructor Joes Luis Rodriguez Gil will introduce powerful tools such as functional programming (purrs) with functions, conditionals, loops, and more. These tools will help you simplify and automate common data analysis tasks. Special guests, Ana-Maria Heilman and Didier Murillo will demonstrate Mr. Bean, a user-friendly R-Shiny app. Mr. Bean simplifies the large-scale experimental trial analysis by using the power and versatility of Linear Mixed Models (LMM) along with the visual power offered by RStudio. Don't miss this opportunity to expand your analytical expertise in Plant Breeding and Research. Enroll now in Level 4 and unlock your full potential!
4 Levels Available in 2023 - See dates & individual registration below:
Each level of this ONLINE course is 2-half days
► Level 1: March 21 & 22, 2023
► Level 2: June 6 & 7, 2023
► Level 3: September 6 & 7, 2023
► Level 4: December 12 & 13, 2023
Time: 7:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Pacific time zone (PDT)
Early Registration Price: $740*
Regular Registration Price: $850
*(Early Registration ends November 12, 2023)
INSTRUCTORS:

Jose Luis Rodriguez Gil, Ph.D.
Dr. Jose Luis Rodriguez Gil is an ecotoxicologist and environmental risk scientist with almost two decades of experience characterizing the effects of contaminants on the environment and aquatic systems. Jose Luis has worked with many classes of chemicals over the years but having completed his Ph.D. at the University of Guelph (Canada), a large portion of his work has focussed on plant protection products and agricultural settings. The large and complex nature of the datasets resulting from his research led him into the world of R, a subject he has been teaching at the university level for a few years, and for which he has received several awards.

Alexandra Tomerius, Ph.D.
While earning her doctorate at the University of Hohenheim, Dr. Alexandra Tomerius worked in close cooperation with private industry plant breeding companies. She further devoted herself to the optimization of plant breeding as a post-graduate through early work as a research associate and later work as a freelance consultant. She was involved in projects related to the optimization of breeding winter wheat (Lochow-Petkus GmbH) and winter oilseed rape (DSV Deutsche Saatveredelung, Lippstadt). Since 2011, she has been and still is working for different private companies as a plant breeding consultant as well as giving training courses to academia and private industry in various fields of plant breeding, with a focus on statistics, field trial design, and breeding scheme optimization.

Jovan Djordjevic, Ph.D.
Jovan is a plant breeder & seed executive with over 25 years of experience in the field crops and vegetable seed industries. His career began in France in 1996, as a Corn Breeder for Monsanto. Jovan continued in Canada as the Canola Breeding Lead for Monsanto, then in California as the R&D Team lead for Bayer/BASF. Throughout his prolific career, he has been a part of over 200 releases of hybrid varieties of corn, canola, tomato, pepper, sweet corn, watermelon, melon, cucumber, onions, carrots, and leek. In addition to being an SBC director of education, instructor for Plant Breeding academies and other SBC courses, Jovan is one of the founders and board director for Murray River Seeds and an industry consultant for plant breeding and business strategies with F2Gen LLC. He is looking forward, together with the SBC team of instructors, to impart his experiences to future generations of plant breeders and other seed industry professionals.
Questions? Contact Jeffrey Robinson at jerobinson@ucdavis.edu
