The Mix99 software grew into an export product for animal and plant breeding

Modern animal and plant breeding is based on a very accurate assessment of the genetic values ​​of individuals. Over the years, the breeding evaluation software developed at Luke has grown into a competitive software product that is used all over the world.

The breeding value is the breeder's most important tool, which is used to decide which individuals are selected for the next generation. The breeding value tells how genetically good the offspring of an individual are. 

Modern animal and plant breeding is based on a very accurate assessment of the genetic values of individuals. This determination of breeding values is called breeding evaluation. It makes use of quantitative genetics and statistical methods. Over the years, the breeding evaluation software developed at Luke has grown into a highly regarded software product used around the world.

The researchers at Luke have developed one of the most powerful software suites to solve such statistical models. 

Modern animal and plant breeding rely on the accurate estimation of the genetic values of candidate individuals. This requires using a huge amount of complex data from different sources in a statistical model. Such models can have genomic and phenotypic data from millions of individuals and 500 million unknowns to solve. Efficient algorithms and high-performance computing are needed to solve the model in a reasonable time. Over the last 25 years, researchers at Luke have developed one of the most powerful software suites to solve such models. 

MiX99 software suite is in daily use by animal and plant breeding professionals on all continents. Reliable prediction of genetic values is an essential element in genetic improvement of farmed animal and plant species. Breeding results in permanent changes to the characteristics of animals and plants. Due to climate change and population growth, breeding is an important sector in terms of agriculture and food security.