Breeding Insight (BI) was established in 2018 by the USDA-ARS with the goal to assist USDA-ARS breeders with the implementation of genomic insight and selection as part of routine specialty crop and livestock breeding. Breeding Insight assists breeders by developing genomic, phenomic, and data management tools for higher genetic gains and programmatic outputs based on each breeding program’s goals.

In 2018, during its pilot phase, BI worked with six initial species: alfalfa, blueberry, grape, salmon, sweetpotato and trout. In 2022, BI added another 10 species: cranberry, cucumber, honey bee, lettuce, oat, pecan and strawberry, as well as citrus, cotton and soybean through BI OnRamp. In 2024, BI added another eleven species: blackberry, coffee, hemp, hop, hydrangea, potato, raspberry, sorghum, sugar beet, as well as sugar cane through BI OnRamp. This addition in 2024 meant that 27 species and 51 breeding programs across the United States work with Breeding Insight or BI OnRamp.

Breeding Insight employs over 30 talented individuals as part of their Development, Program Coordination and Science Coordination Teams. BI uses the Bioinformatics Facility's BioHPC Cloud platform for large computing and analytics projects and the Genomics Facility for genotypic data generation.

Learn more about Breeding Insight https://www.breedinginsight.org/.