The The Graduate Program in Genetics and Plant Breeding (PPGGM) has an excellent support infrastructure for the execution of all administrative, academic and research activities.

The main facilities occupied by the PPGGM are described below:

Rooms for program administration

For administrative management, the PPGGM has a room for coordination (10 m2) and a room for the secretary (16 m2). Both places are airy, well lit and equipped with tables, chairs, cabinets, shelves, phones, computers, printers and internet. The secretary also has space to serve the public, storage for books, theses and dissertations defended, files with academic documents and also a space for a stockroom (9 m2). The PPGGM has a secretaire from the administrative technical staff of UFLA.

Working Offices for Professors

All professors who work at PPGGM have workrooms, measuring approximately 18 m2, with good ventilation, lighting, table, chairs, cabinets, a phone, a computer, a printer and internet. Conditions are appropriate for planning, organizing and meeting with students.

Pedagogical support and student support rooms

The PPGGM has two classrooms with 36 m2 for theory classes equipped with computers, a television, multimedia resources, a chalk board, desks and didactic-pedagogical material for teaching. Laboratories equipped with all the necessary items for the execution of the subjects are used, as well as experimental field areas and greenhouses, to teach practical classes.

PPGGM has a Bioinformatics room with 50 m2, properly furnished and equipped to teach theory/practical classes and also to carry out research data analysis. PPGGM encourages the use of free softwares such as R Software, Selegen-REML/BLUP, Echidna Mixed Models, CropStat, GENES, MSTAT-C and SISVAR, Karyotype, Drawid, Image Tool, Python Language, FastQC, Trimmomatic, STAR, HTSeq, Blast, Bedtools, Samyools, PicardTools, BWA, Bowtie, Velver, SoapDenovo, JellyFish, Tophat, Cufflinks, Trinity, mirDeep2, RNAhybrid, VCtools, PLink, GATK, FreeBayes, SNPEff, and Faststructure that are routinely used in various statistical analyzes research and classroom work.

PPGGM also uses a large theater, with capacity for 170 people, fully equipped with air conditioning, computer and multimedia resource for seminars, lectures and technical-scientific events. The PPGGM has another theater with capacity for 45 people, also assembled with air conditioning, multimedia resource and video-conference system for holding small events and defending dissertations and theses. The program also uses an airy and well-lit room for meetings of the collegiate and research groups, provided with air conditioning, a computer and multimedia resources.

Regarding equipment for collective use by students and teachers, the PPGGM has notebooks, tablets, palm tops, cameras, digitizing tables, GPS and drones that can be used in classes and also in research.

PPGGM has a room for graduate students, measuring approximately 48 m2, with study benches, computers, printers, good lighting and ventilation, and individual accommodation for study, and internet. This place is also destined to the Genetics Study Group – GEN. In addition, there are spaces available for individual and group studies in the Cytogenetics, Molecular Cytogenetics, Molecular Genetics and Plant Disease Resistance Laboratories.

Laboratory Structures

PPGGM has a modern and adequate laboratory infrastructure that meets the demands of the research projects developed. The Program has three specific research labs (listed below) and other multi-use ones made available by UFLA.

Molecular Genetics Laboratory

This laboratory is coordinated by Professor Evandro Novaes and with the support of an effective laboratory technician, who mainly serves the research line in molecular genetics and phytopathogens, and also supports other research lines. The laboratory has an area of approximately 141 m2.

Plant Resistance to Disease Laboratory

This laboratory is coordinated by Professor Elaine Aparecida de Souza and an laboratory technician. It has an area of approximately 67m2 and a 12m2 growth room with light, temperature and humidity control, and greenhouses for growth and inoculation of pathogens. It mainly serves the line of research in molecular genetics and phytopathogens and also supports other lines of research.

Cytogenetics Laboratory

This laboratory is coordinated by Professor Vânia Helena Techio and has a laboratory technician from UFLA's permanent staff. It has an area of approximately 150 m2 and two rooms, one of which has a fluorescence microscope (10 m2) and the other one is used for stocking (12 m2), serving mainly the cytogenetic research line and also supporting other lines of research.

Molecular Cytogenetics Laboratory

This laboratory was created in 2013, with dimensions of approximately 50m2, and mainly serves the cytogenetic research line, but also supports other researches. In this environment, molecular cytogenetic techniques (FISH, Fiber-FISH, GISH, ChIp and immunolocalization) are developed.

Multi-User Labs

UFLA has laboratories and multi-user physical spaces to support the program's lines of research. These environments have been extremely important to further leverage the quality of research developed by graduate students. An important laboratory for the development of PPGGM research is the Electronic Microscopy and Ultrastructural Analysis (LME) at UFLA. It is coordinated by Professor Eduardo Alves from the Department of Phytopathology with support from an agronomist and a technician in biochemistry and has an area of 375 m2, with shared management and use, open to all researchers from UFLA, EPAMIG and other educational institutions in the region, as well as private companies. The laboratory has modern equipment such as: Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) Zeiss EM 109, Ultramicrotome (Reichrt-jung ultracut), Knife Maker Apparatus (Leica), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) LEO EVO 40 XVP with microanalysis system X-ray (Bruker) and Gatan cryosystem, Critical point apparatus (Bal-Tec), Gold evaporator (Sputtering) (Bal-Tec), Carbon evaporator (Bal-Tec), Fluorescence microscope with Apotome system and preparation for Confocal Laser, Basic Light Microscope (Nikon), Stereo Microscope (Meiji), Stereo Microscope WL, Stereo Microscope with Epi-Fluorescence (Nikon) and Epifluorescence Microscope DM 2000 (Leica), Leica UC7 Ultramicrotome equipped with Leica Stereomicroscope M80, Leica EM TRIM2 Pyramid Trimming Apparatus for Flat or Cylindrical Samples with S6 Stereomicroscope, LSM 780 Confocal Microscope, Digital Microscope, Dino-lite Digital Microscope Premier c With support and rigid rod, with magnifications of up to 200X, Micro, Semi-motorized and high-performance Microtome, model CUT 5062, brand Slee Mainz, Leica Cryostat and an Olympus BX51 epifluorescence microscope. All these equipments have been useful for research in Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics of Plants and Phytopathogens, as they improve the resolution limit of microscopy images. The PPGGM also has a Flow Cytometer, acquired with resources from Pró-Equipamentos in partnership with the Department of Agriculture. This equipment is widely used in PPGGM research for DNA quantification experiments and ploidy level certification. A pulsed field electrophoresis (CHEF) equipment is shared with a postgraduate program in Microbiology, acquired with resources from Capes.

Another important multiuser laboratory for the PPGGM is the Central Scientific Computing Laboratory – LCC. It was implemented as part of the PDI-UFLA project (CT-INFRA) which provided financial resources for the construction of the physical area and acquisition of equipment. Its main objective is the implementation of a high-performance data processing center that allows significant advances in the following areas: Computational Mathematics, Statistics and Agricultural Experimentation, Modeling, Genetics and Improvement, Graphic Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Physics, among others. At the moment the LCC has a cluster of computers, consisting of 1 Dell Power Edge T410 Head Node (24 cores in 2 Intel Xeon sockets, 16 GB RAM and 1 1 TB HDD) and 9 Compute Power Edge T410 Nodes (each one with 24 cores on 2 Intel Xeon sockets, 12 GB RAM and 1 600 GB HDD). In addition, a new cluster of computers for the LCC, more current and with greater processing capacity, is in the final process of purchasing, to be acquired through the MCTI/FINEP/CT-INFRA-PROINFRA-02/2014 project. This new equipment will consist of 1 (one) Head Node (16 colors, 128 GB of RAM memory and 1 HDD of 16 TB), 2 (two) Compute Nodes (each one with 64 colors, 256 GB of RAM memory and 1 SSD 480GB) and 1(one) GPU Node (32 cores, 28GB of RAM, 1(one) 480GB SSD and 1(one) Nvidia Tesla P100 12GB GPU).

Field Structure

Experiment Preparation Rooms

The PPGGM has eight experimental preparation rooms measuring approximately 200 m2, with scales, humidity gauge, accommodation for the preparation of field experiments, and handling of plots after harvest. It also has three cold chambers that serve the improvement programs of different crops with a temperature of 10ºC and a relative humidity of 50% for the conservation of orthodox seeds, and a cold chamber for the storage of potato germplasm, with a temperature between 2ºC and 5ºC and a relative humidity of 80 %.

Experimental Field Areas and Vegetation Houses

PPGGM has an experimental area of 35 ha, located on the Experimental Farm of UFLA (Center for Scientific and Technological Development – Muquém) and on the University campus. This area serves mainly the lines of research In Genetic Improvement of Economically Important Crops and Quantitative Genetics in Plant Breeding, but also supports other lines of research.

PPGGM also uses the experimental farms of the Agricultural Research Corporation of Minas Gerais (EPAMIG) to carry out the research. Some dissertations and theses are developed in partnership with private companies (Suzano, Souza Cruz, Plantar, Klabin, Bela Vista) and public companies (Embrapa Beef Cattle, Embrapa Dairy Cattle, Embrapa Temperate Climate, Embrapa Corn and Sorghum and Embrapa Rice and Beans) and use their infrastructure to obtain research data. These partnerships enable the insertion of our students in different regions of the country.

The PPGGM has 12 greenhouses with bench structures and irrigation that are used to maintain the plants used in the experiments. Some have an automated system with temperature and relative humidity control and one with a hydroponics system to obtain botanical potato seeds.