Protecting Soybean Seed Innovation
It’s difficult to determine just how much yield would have been lost had soybean varieties with PI88788 soybean cyst nematode (SCN) resistance not been made widely available to farmers in the late 1990s, writes by Bethany Baratta at the Iowa Soybean Association. Today, Iowa soybean growers have over 900 SCN-resistant varieties from which to choose. It’s because of the available germplasm — the genetic diversity that exists in our collections of plant introductions, land races, different soybeans, and wild relatives collected from around the world — that breeders are able to develop these resistant varieties to protect soybean yields.
Over the years, breeders have tapped into the National Soybean Germplasm Collection at the Agricultural Research Service lab in Urbana, Ill., to develop soybeans with valuable traits, like improved drought tolerance, by crossing multiple lines to build better performing plants, according to Michaela McGinn, director of sustainable production with the United Soybean Board.
“The SCN resistance sources Peking and PI88788 — both identified and developed by researchers/breeders — have shaped the body of work targeting soybean’s number one yield-robbing pest. The discovery and deployment of rhg1 and rhg4, the key genetic regions found responsible for SCN resistance, have made it possible to widely incorporate resistance into commercial varieties,” she says.
“The Kingwa line, also sourced from the collection, was the parental line researchers and breeders used to build soybean resistance to Phytophthora, a pathogen that causes root and stem rot in soybeans. Additionally, the repository provides data to the Germplasm Resources Information Network, which lets scientists track how soybeans have changed both on the outside (traits) and inside (genetics), guiding better decisions for the future of agriculture.” McGinn adds.
This seed bank houses thousands of unique soybean lines from around the world, including some from China, where soybeans were first grown. Many of these are old, wild types or land races, not the kind farmers would use to break a yield record today. “These lines may not be your next high-yielding variety, but they are often the key to natural resistance — against sudden death syndrome, soybean cyst nematode, and other pressures that farmers face in the field,” says Joe McClure, chief officer of the Iowa Soybean Association’s (ISA) Research Center for Farming Innovation (RCFI).
Public and private researchers tap into the seed bank regularly. The germplasm is used in breeding, crossing heritage lines with newer lines to breed for specific resistance and other desirable traits. McClure reported more than 20,000 seed distributions go out to breeders who use these lines as raw material for innovation.
Read more at the Iowa Soybean Association.
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