Checkoff-funded research may help researchers breed new traits across maturity groups

Seed companies generally make soybean varieties available for five to seven years before they are replaced with more resistant, higher-yielding new varieties. Soybean breeders are being challenged to get those new, better varieties on the market more quickly to meet the growing challenges of soybean farming, but breeding traits into varieties in a different maturity group is often a hit-or-miss approach.

Molecular research, funded by the soy checkoff, may be the key to speeding up the breeding process.

“Normally when breeding for group II soybeans, which are really good for Iowa, the breeder would take a high-yielding maturity group II soybean and cross it with some other high-yielding group II soybean,” says Kristin Bilyeu, Ph.D., research molecular biologist with the U.S Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service. “Our model will allow the breeder Read More