Soybean germplasm collection spans century

URBANA, Ill. — Soybean production began to ramp in the 1920s with increased demand soybean oil and meal used in livestock feed.

Publications contained stories and photos of soybeans as a food source in East Asia and recipes for U.S. consumers. In 1922, the A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company in Decatur in central Illinois began crushing soybeans using expellers to make oil and cake.

University of Illinois professors saw the demand and a need for further research. Those efforts led to what is now the National Soybean Germplasm Collection housed within the U of I National Soybean Research Center and overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the germplasm collection at Urbana.

Inside a large walk-in refrigerator on campus, thousands of envelopes hold the fate of global food security, not to mention a significant portion of the world’s economy.

The collection is the country’s only public soybean seed bank, encompassing nearly the whole of the crop’s genetic diversity and impacting nearly every soybean product grown today — not just in the United States, but across the world.

Each seed contains unique gene combinations breeders can mine to create new soybean varieties that can withstand emerging threats.

ARS and U of I College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences researchers are constantly digging into the collection. In addition, ARS freely distributes seeds for research purposes to more than 400 requesters each year.

Utilizing this historic germplasm, soybean breeders develop varieties with resistance to soybean cyst nematode, brown stem rot, phytophthora and soybean rust. The germplasm has also been used to develop varieties with higher protein and oleic acid levels.

Genetic Diversity

Eliana Monteverde, U of I Department of Crop Sciences assistant professor and plant breeder who utilizes the collection’s resources, noted this important anniversary during the recent Illinois Soybean Association’s Agronomy Farm field tour.

“The way it started is some farmers in Illinois started growing soybeans and the USDA saw there was an interest and they were already in the university. They learned that having genetic diversity was very important to develop some varieties,” she said.

“So, over 100 years ago, they went on a trip to China and other countries in Southeast Asia, and they collected many, many different samples to start their soybean germplasm collection.

“Since they had that collection, some professors at the university, working in collaboration with the USDA, figured out that they could make crosses between these lines in this collection and actually breed varieties that were adapted to it.

“That started over 100 years ago, in the beginning of the 1920s, by a professor at the university, and they developed the very first soybean variety adapted to the U.S. specifically.”

Legacy Continues

The early vision of those soybean breeders at the U of I set the table for a germplasm collection that is still used a century later.

“The varieties that have been developed through the program are part of our current germplasm line. This is not only true for us in Illinois, but also in many other states,” Monteverde said.

“In the public sector, we share a lot of seeds and varieties between us and we use them for crosses. Many of the lines that were developed in Illinois are actually in the pedigrees of many, many of the lines that are developed in other universities, too.

“But also many of the varieties that were developed in Illinois years ago, and are still being developed now, they’re part of the germplasm in private companies.

“So, when private companies started creating their own breeding programs, the original germplasm come from the varieties from the program at Illinois.”