“…At the end of the second millennium, pioneering works in Brazil applied to plant breeding were carried out in the field of mixed linear models fitted under the frequentist approach via REML/BLUP (Resende et al 1993, 1996, Bueno Filho and Vencovsky 2000, Duarte and Vencovsky 2001, and the Bayesian approach via Gibbs sampler (Resende 1997, Resende and Rosa-Perez 1999. These models included random regressions for longitudinal and multivariate data (Resende 1997, Resende andRosa-Perez 1999), non-linear or generalized linear models for categorical variables , spatial analysis (Resende and Sturion 2001), factor analytical mixed models for multivariate analysis and genotype x environment interaction Thompson 2003, 2004), and competition or associative models of social interaction Thompson 2003, Resende et al 2005).…”