Update:
September 15, 2020 Report
The goal of this project is to identify new molecular markers for temperature stress tolerance that can be used in soybean breeding. Because typical marker identification strategies are not possible with treatments like heat and cold stress, we have developed a novel, mechanistic approach that incorporates many types of data in a predictive model. We are generating data in both growth chamber and field experiments to identify differences among soybean genotypes in physiological and molecular responses to temperature stress. The use of heated field plots will enable us to validate growth chamber and model-based predictions in multiple genotypes growth in the field.

Update:
The goal of this project is to identify new molecular markers for temperature stress tolerance that can be used in soybean breeding. Because typical marker identification strategies are not possible with treatments like heat and cold stress, we have developed a novel, mechanistic approach that incorporates many types of data in a predictive model. We are generating data in both growth chamber and field experiments to identify differences among soybean genotypes in physiological and molecular responses to temperature stress. The use of heated field plots will enable us to validate growth chamber and model-based predictions in multiple genotypes growth in the field. Our data indicate that soybean has genetic variation for heat tolerance, and we continue to collect molecular and physiological data to identify markers that can be used to select the more tolerant genotypes in breeding programs.