2021
In support of the Iowa Soybean Research Center
Contributor/Checkoff:
Category:
Sustainable Production
Keywords:
Field management Industry outreach
Lead Principal Investigator:
Gregory Tylka, Iowa State University
Co-Principal Investigators:
Project Code:
GR-023053
Contributing Organization (Checkoff):
Institution Funded:
Brief Project Summary:
The Iowa Soybean Research Center focuses on all Iowa State University activities related to soybean biology, breeding, economics, precision agriculture, production and pest management in the state. The center involves and helps coordinate research, teaching and Extension faculty and staff who work in these areas. The ultimate, long-term goal of the center is to advance the understanding of soybean plant biology and increase soybean production, making production more profitable and environmentally sustainable in the future. Objectives of the Iowa Soybean Research Center include developing collaborative research opportunities between the ISRC's industry partners, the Iowa Soybean Association and ISU.
Key Beneficiaries:
#agronomists, #Extension agents, #farmers
Unique Keywords:
#collaboration, #iowa soybean research center, #research coordination, #soybean research
Information And Results
Project Summary

Iowa continues to be a leader in the production of soybeans in the U.S. and is home to organizations and companies working to improve plant health, yields, and profitability of soybean production for farmers. Those organizations include Iowa State University (ISU), the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA), numerous multi-national and Iowa-based seed, chemical and technology companies, and local farm cooperatives, grain elevators and others who provide crop inputs and services to farmers.
The Iowa Soybean Research Center (ISRC) was established in 2014 to bring together scientists and educators from public and private entities to discuss research and education needs, to foster sharing of research and education experiences, ideas and technologies, and to identify and offer opportunities to sponsor efforts, either exclusively or jointly with others, to advance the science and business of growing soybeans in Iowa.

Project Objectives

• build strong public-private partnerships
• increase communication with soybean farmers and the agricultural industry to identify soybean research and education needs at ISU
• increase and leverage public and private funding of soybean research and education activities at ISU
• increase collaboration on and coordination of research and educational activities by ISU and ISA
• increase the training of undergraduate and graduate students and other personnel at ISU on soybean-related topics
• provide research-based information to benefit the Iowa soybean industry
• build communication with farmers and industry about soybean research and education activities at ISU and ISA
• more actively engage farmers and others in the soybean value chain so investments in leadership, research and education integration are realized and accelerated by all

Project Deliverables

• increased coordination of Iowa State University soybean research and education activities with Iowa Soybean Association staff and agribusiness personnel in Iowa
• increased exchange of ideas and information and participation in crop conferences and educational meetings held by Iowa State University and the Iowa Soybean Association
• increased cooperative research conducted by Iowa State University scientists and researchers in the ISA Research Center for Farming Innovation
• increased funding of Iowa State University soybean production research by leveraging soybean checkoff funds with financial support from the soybean industry

Progress Of Work

Update:
On September 18, 2020, the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) received an update on the soybean gall midge and research being conducted by entomologists in the Midwest, welcomed two new industry partners, AMVAC Chemical Corp. and Merschman Seeds, heard about five soybean research ideas from ISU faculty, and the Council shared their reasons for support of each project. As a reminder, three research projects were selected for funding by the center’s Management Team based on feedback and recommendations from the Council:

Thomas Baum "Mechanisms of defense suppression by soybean cyst nematode effectors" @$58,000 per year for 2 years = Total $116,000

Leonor Leandro "Time of disease onset as an early indicator of soybean resistance to SDS" @$20,000 per year for 2 years = Total $40,000

Lie Tang "In-field soybean seed pod analysis on harvest stocks using 3D imaging and machine learning" @$50,000 per year for 2 years = Total $100,000

The ISRC exceeded $1 million of support for soybean research with the recent three projects selected. This would not have been possible without the financial support of our partners, the Iowa Soybean Association, AMVAC, BASF, Bayer, Cornelius Seed, Corteva Agriscience, FMC, GDM, Merschman Seeds and Syngenta. We thank all of our industry partners for helping us reach this milestone.

Felix Fritschi, interim director of the Missouri Soybean Center at the University of Missouri, and Greg Luce with the Missouri Soybean Association reached out to the ISRC for a meeting discussion that took place via ZOOM in mid-December. Participants included the Missouri Soybean Center’s steering committee members, Felix Fritschi, Greg Luce, and the ISRC staff of Greg Tylka, Jill Cornelis, and Kara Berg. After preliminary introductions and explanations of each center’s focus, the meeting turned to possible collaborations between the two centers. An idea the group discussed is a one-day Field Tour in which the ISRC will host a group of graduate students, postdocs, research staff, and/or faculty from the University of Missouri for a visit to select agri-businesses in Iowa. Early discussions for a future Field Tour are underway.

Since 2017, the ISRC has hosted Field Tour events inviting ISU research scientists and graduate students on one- and two-day visits of various Iowa agri-businesses. The ISRC placed a hold on the Field Tour events in 2020 because of the university’s travel restrictions related to COVID-19. Thinking “outside the box”, the ISRC staff is working on a Virtual Field Tour option. We currently are organizing with Corteva Agriscience in Johnston, Iowa, a series of virtual tours at the company. The tour will consist of 5 or 6 sessions and include include live-streamed video, recorded video, and panel of Corteva scientists to answer questions from the tour participants. For those unable to join into the live webinar, the video will be recorded and viewable later from the ISRC’s website with permissions from Corteva Agriscience.

The Soybean Centers Coordination Group (SCCG) made up of directors and staff from soybean centers and their state QSSB’s in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri met during a ZOOM call on February 10. This group shares soybean project ideas with the intent of forming collaborative teams to develop related research projects. Last year, the group submitted two pre-proposals to the United Soybean Board (USB) led by Katy Rainey from Purdue University on behalf of the SCCG. The USB invited both projects to full proposals. One project focused on plant-based protein was awarded funding. Due to the pandemic, Katy will be requesting a time extension on this project. She also resubmitted the pre-proposal that was not funded by the USB last year, related to remote sensing technologies for targeted soybean management. Additionally, Ed Anderson submitted a pre-proposal to the USB for funding for a multi-state project involving researchers affiliated with the soybean centers. During the February 10 meeting, the group talked about several subject areas looking for novel research topics and sharing names of researchers who could lead these projects, should the USB request a full proposal. Full proposal invitations from the USB will come out in March. The USB will announce awarded projects in late August.

Jill Cornelis, ISRC’s program coordinator, and Leonor Leandro, ISU faculty member of ISU’s Plant Pathology and Microbiology department, organized and arranged a ZOOM meeting February 12, 2021 that involved plant pathology and microbiology graduate students, research staff, and faculty from ISU, North Dakota State University, and the University of Minnesota all working on Fusarium research. Leonor periodically hosts these meetings with the purpose of sharing current Fusarium research within this scientific community. The meetings also provide opportunities for graduate students and postdocs to develop their presentation and communication skills, as well as, fostering collaborations among colleagues to work together on possible future projects. This year’s meeting included six speakers talking about their Fusarium research in soybean:

1. Guiping Hu, “A Gated Recurrent Units (GRU)-based Model for Soybean SDS with Satellite Imagery”
2. Madan Bhattacharyya, “Towards understanding the genetic mechanisms used by overexpressed GmDR1 gene in generating broad spectrum disease pest resistance in transgenic soybean”
3. Gabriela Morel Gadea, “Towards identifying sources of resistance to Fusarium Root Rot”
4. Gary Munkvold, “Effect of pH and other soil conditions on Fusarium seedling disease in soybean”
5. Hui Yan (NDSU), “Effect of temperature and cultivar on root rot of soybean caused by Fusarium solani species complex 5”
6. Jim Kurle (UMN), “Light effects on phenotyping results”


It was late in 2019 when the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) reorganized their research team into the current Research Center for Farming Innovation (RCFI), led by Ed Anderson. It was Ed who reached out for the ISRC’s help in setting up an initial meeting with leaders from the RCFI, the ISU Iowa Nutrient Research Center, Agronomy, the ISRC and more recently, C-CHANGE with Lisa Schulte-Moore to discuss strategic and tactical partnerships between ISA and ISU for innovation and integration. The Tactical and Strategic Initiative group has met periodically over the past year talking about broad and varied topics. The group recently decided it was time to move onto the next phase and consider solid research ideas and funding avenues. Six project ideas were identified during their February 2021 meeting. Ed Anderson and Roger Wolf from the RCFI put together a one-page concept paper they presented to the ISA Board in late February on how checkoff funding could be utilized for a strategic initiative with the intent of the funds being leveraged with financial support from federal funding agencies as well as from industry. The next steps include selection of a final topic and identifying the right people with time and interest to do the research, and find potential funding sponsors for leveraging funds.

Research Project Updates:
Drs. Prashant Jha, associate professor and extension weed scientist at ISU and Steve Whitham, professor of molecular plant pathology in the department of plant pathology and microbiology at ISU, each received two years of funding support from the ISRC for their research projects in 2019. Drs. Prashant and Whitham provided recent progress report of their projects scheduled to end September 30, 2021. Please find their report for your review attached in the same email as this update.

The ISRC funded the ISO-FAST (Interactive Summaries of On-Farm Strip Trials Tool) co-lead by Fernando Miguez, associate professor of agronomy at ISU and Peter Kyveryga, senior research scientist-analytics at the Iowa Soybean Association in 2018. The research team received a two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) for a new project titled, “FACT: Web-Based Dynamic Data-Analytics Framework for On-Farm Research Networks,” building on the original ISO-FAST project. You can learn more in the ISRC’s January 2021 newsletter found on our website, iowasoybeancenter.org/newsletters.

The ISRC staff received training in March on the National Soybean Research Database, soybeanresearchdata.com, about how to post updates of our current research projects. The database gives the center the opportunity of sharing its progress reports to farmers and the public.

UPCOMING:
The center is looking ahead with the release of two important funding solicitations. The 2021 Request for Proposals from the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) and the North Central Soybean Research Program (NCSRP) are anticipated around the third week of March. The center offers preparation assistance to ISU researchers interested in submitting proposals to these organizations.

Kara Berg, ISRC’s communications specialist, is adding final changes on the April 2021 newsletter. Look for the newsletter in your email around mid-April or go to the ISRC’s website to view this newsletter and others, iowasoybeancenter.org.

The center will again sponsor the Iowa Youth Crop Scouting Competition in July 2021. The annual competition invites middle and high school students (grades 7-12) from Iowa to compete and showcase their crop scouting abilities in corn and soybean. Typically, the event is hosted at ISU’s Field Extension Education Lab (FEEL) in Boone, Iowa. In 2020, the competition was held remotely due to the pandemic. The set up for this year’s competition is yet to be determined.

SoyFest 2021. SoyFest is the ISRC’s campus event they’ve been planning to help educate undergraduate students about soybeans, their various uses, and their importance to the economy of the state and country. The staff is working with campus organizers about how the ISRC can host a fun, educational event safely during the pandemic. The date for SoyFest is Wednesday, August 25, 2021.

Update:
The center received a 1-year extension of FY2020 funds and therefore progress and activities that occurred in FY2021 were described in the center's FY2020 progress report in the database. However, those same center activities are reported here because they occurred in FY2021.

The center received a 1-year extension on the use of these FY2020 funds due to the COVID pandemic and its effects on hiring and other aspects of conducting research at ISU. Therefore, below is a listing of the Iowa Soybean Research Center (ISRC) activities from April through September 2021.

The ISRC now has 11 industry partners. Our newest partners include UPL and Innvictis/Simplot. UPL NA, Inc. produces agricultural chemicals specializing in herbicides, insecticides, bactericides, fungicides, fumigants, and harvest aid, and pest management services. Innvictis/Simplot is a manufacturer and retailer of seed treatments and other agricultural products. We welcome both UPL and Innvictis/Simplot to the center’s partnership team.

A staff retreat for the ISRC was held at Reiman Garden’s Speer Room on June 24. Participating in the retreat were Greg Tylka, Jill Cornelis, Kara Berg, Steve May and Ed Anderson. At the meeting, attendees:
• Discussed other partnership considerations outside our realm of soybean production – exploring opportunities to connect with different areas of the industry. Ex. Cargill
• Reviewed of the center’s website – discussed changes made on the current site to enhance the way users search for information.
• Outlined the Industry Advisory Council meeting agenda and reviewed the research summaries submitted by ISU soybean researchers for funding consideration by the council – decided on presenters, etc.
• Reviewed ISRC Operating Guidelines including policies for ISRC-supported research – it was the first time the center’s operating guidelines have been reviewed since its inception in 2014.

The NC-1197: Practical Management of Nematodes on Corn, Soybeans and Other Crops of Regional Importance group met this year at Reiman Gardens in Ames, Iowa on July 22-23. The meeting was hosted by the Iowa Soybean Research Center. The multi-state group is made up of university members from Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky, Kansas, North Dakota, Minnesota, Ohio, South Dakota, Missouri, Nebraska, Michigan, Indiana, and Alabama, plus an administrative advisor and two USDA-NIFA representatives. It was a hybrid meeting with 11 representatives joining in-person and 4 participating via a ZOOM connection. Kaitlyn Bissonnette, University of Missouri, organized the meeting’s agenda that included a welcome from Ed Anderson, representing NCSRP, updates from each of the USDA-NIFA representatives, the NC-1197 administrative advisor, and state reports from each state representative.

Mark Licht, assistant professor of agronomy and extension cropping systems specialist at ISU, reached out to the ISRC for assistance in organizing and hosting an Ag Media Meet & Greet on August 6 at the ISU Field Education Extension Laboratory (FEEL) in Boone, Iowa. This was an opportunity for agriculture reporters to meet and make connections with ISU crop extension specialists when expert information is needed. Several of the reporters conducted on-the-spot interviews at FEEL after the event concluded.

After much anticipation, the ISRC’s inaugural SoyFest took place on ISU’s campus on August 25, 2021. The focus of SoyFest is to educate ISU undergraduate students about the importance of soybean to Iowa and the many different uses of soybean. The event had a festival feel with tents, games, soy-related food samples, robotic demonstrations, a photo booth, potted soybean plants, and the like. The day was hot, but students lined up to participate in the fun. Special appearances included President Wintersteen, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Robison, ISA’s District 5 Farmer Board member Morey Hill, and Cy.

The ISRC hosted a Meals from the Heartland (MFTH) packaging event as a kickoff activity on the eve of SoyFest. Soy protein is a “lifesaving” component in each meal, according to MFTH coordinator, Joel O’Dell. MFTH uses volunteers to help package nutritious meals for those in need both locally and internationally. Our goal of packaging 20,000 healthy meals in two hours with 42 ISU faculty, staff, and student volunteers would provide food security for children in Iowa returning to school. Volunteers had a good time competing with each other to package as many meals as possible in the two hours. The group worked so hard, they exceeded the goal and packaged over 30,000 meals with 10,000 of the meals being shipped to help people in Haiti following a devastating earthquake earlier in the month. We are thankful to our volunteers and grateful to Cargill and Syngenta for sponsoring the cost of the meal packaging ingredients.

The ISRC hosted their annual Industry Advisory Council (IAC) meeting in Ames, Iowa on September 3. As was the case in 2020, this year’s meeting was a hybrid of council members attending the meeting in person and others connecting through ZOOM. The agenda included speakers presenting on existing and new proposed research ideas in the morning and discussions about the IAC's research needs and review of research ideas submitted by ISU soybean researchers in the afternoon. The IAC recommended support of the following research projects for FY22:
1. Liang Dong and Steve Whitham, "Low-cost multimodal sensor arrays for early-detection of soybean diseases."
2. Prashant Jha, "Enhancing implementation and adoption of non-chemical tactics for IWM in soybean."
3. Leonor Leandro, "Time of disease onset as an early indicator of soybean resistance to SDS."
4. Steve Whitham, Lie Tang, and Danny Singh, "Effects of increased atmosheric CO2 and abiotic stress on soybean performance in the Enviratron."

On September 20, the center’s Management Team reviewed the research proposals and the IAC members’ comments and recommendations made at the September 3 IAC meeting. A final decision was made to invest the available funds to support the research as suggested by the IAC.

Upcoming:
The Iowa Soy Convening will be held at Iowa State University on October 27 hosted by the ISRC. The meeting is part of a planning project for increasing demand for soybean in plant-based protein led by Katy Rainey from Purdue University. The center will identify stakeholders to participate in the Iowa Convening who will provide input about how to build market opportunities for soy as the preferred plant protein source.

Final Project Results

Update:
The ISRC’s Industry Advisory Council (IAC) held their annual meeting on September 3, 2021 in the Ballroom of the ISU Alumni Center. Several council members were unable to travel because of the pandemic, so the hybrid meeting included members attending in-person as well as those who participated online through ZOOM. The all-day meeting featured an overview of the center and its funding sources, a presentation provided by Steve Whitham on his currently funded ISRC project, “Virus-mediated gene editing in soybean”, and talks given on four of the eight new research ideas proposed by ISU researchers:

~Leonor Leandro – "Time of Disease Onset as an Early Indicator of Soybean
Resistance to SDS."
~Liang Dong – "Low-Cost Multimodal Sensor Arrays for Early-Detection of
Soybean Diseases."
~Steve Whitham, Lie Tang, Danny Singh – "Effects of Increased Atmospheric
CO2 and Abiotic Stress on Soybean Performance in the Enviratron."
~Marshall McDaniel – "Using a “Liquid Cover Crop” to Reduce Nutrient
Leaching and Increase Soil Health."

After a short lunch break, Greg Tylka led a “Think Tank” discussion with the council representatives sharing their research needs and wants before the conversation segued into discussions on the new proposals.
There was a lot of discussion around the proposals. The council recommended offering Dr. Leandro additional funding (offering $60,000 over two years instead of the $40,000 she requested) to expand her soybean sudden death syndrome project to include additional soybean varieties and conducting more field experiments, especially in more southern locations in the state. There also was somewhat of a consensus of the council to recommend funding the Whitham, Tang, Singh “Enviratron” project at $100,000/year for 2 years ($200,000 total). Supporting these two projects at the suggested level required $260,000, which was $40,000 more than the center had available. Suzanne Shirbroun and Randy Miller, IAC farmer representatives, offered to request from the ISA Board an additional $40,000 be provided toward support of the ISRC’s FY22 research projects mentioned above.
After this, additional council members spoke up and further discussions occurred and a stronger consensus (near unanimous) was reached to recommend funding Leandro’s project at $60,000 plus Liang Dong’s and Prashant Jha’s projects for $60,000 and $100,000, respectively. The funding necessary for these projects totaled $220,000, which was the amount of funding available from the center.
In the week following the IAC meeting, Suzanne Shirbroun and Randy Miller submitted a request to the Supply Committee of the ISA Board for additional funds as mentioned above, but they requested an additional $100,000 instead of $40,000, as initially discussed, to allow the center to fund the Enviratron project as well as the three other projects that had strong support for funding by the IAC. The Shirbroun/Miller request was approved by the ISA Supply Committee on September 8, and the full ISA Board approved the funding on September 9. This meant the final FY22 funds the ISRC had available to invest in new research projects was $320,000 ($200,000 from ISA and $120,000 from industry partners).
The center’s Management Team met on September 20 to review the research proposals and make funding decisions. The Management Team considered the comments and recommendations made by the Industry Advisory Council members as well as the additional funding support from the Iowa Soybean Association following the Council meeting. As was recommended by the IAC, the following projects were approved for funding by the Management Team:

*Liang Dong and Steve Whitham, "Low-cost multimodal sensor arrays for early-
detection of soybean diseases." ($30,000 per year for 2 years; Total $60,000)

*Prashant Jha, "Enhancing implementation and adoption of non-chemical
tactics for integrated weed management in soybean." ($50,000 per year for 2
years; Total $100,000)

*Leonor Leandro, "Time of disease onset as an early indicator of soybean
resistance to SDS." ($30,000 per year for 2 years; Total $60,000)

*Steve Whitham, Lie Tang, and Danny Singh, "Effects of increased atmospheric
CO2 and abiotic stress on soybean performance in the Enviratron." ($100,000
per year for 2 years {with $100,000 for Year 2 coming from FY23 funds}; Total
$200,000)

New Industry Partners
Steve May, the ISRC’s Industry Partner Recruiter, was successful in adding Latham Hi-Tech Seeds and AGCO as the center’s newest industry partners this fall. Latham Hi-Tech Seeds joined in October and AGCO came on board in December. Welcome!

Events and Activities
The Iowa Soybean Research Center hosted the Iowa Soy Convening in Ames on October 27. The meeting was one of three held in the Midwest last fall as part of a project led by Katy Rainey from Purdue University. The first meeting was hosted by and held on the Purdue University campus in Lafayette, Indiana on October 4-5, and the University of Missouri hosted the third meeting in St. Charles, Missouri on November 16-17. The meetings were part of a planning project to increase demand for soybean in plant-based protein led by Dr. Rainey. Numerous interested stakeholders could not meet in person because of the pandemic, so the meeting had participants attending in-person and others who participated online through ZOOM .Participants of the meetings included soybean researchers, soybean farmers, soybean checkoff representatives, and representatives from various soybean industries and non-profit organizations. Dr. Rainey’s project developed out of the Soybean Centers Coordination Group (SCCG), which is made up of representatives from soybean centers and their qualified state soybean boards from Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri. Emerging from the Soy Convenings, were three ideas for proposals. Teams were identified for the three ideas, and the ideas were submitted in response to the United Soybean Board’s (USB) Request for Concepts. The researchers will learn in February 2022 if USB will request full proposals for any or all of the ideas.

Jill Cornelis, ISRC’s Center Administrator, coordinated ZOOM meetings this fall with a multi-state team of agronomists from Purdue University, the University of Kentucky, The Ohio State University, and the University of Missouri. The group submitted a project idea on regenerative agriculture to the USB’s Request for Concept. The team plans to cooperate with agronomists from Illinois and Iowa if USB requests a ftull proposal based on the idea. Shalamar Armstrong from Purdue University was the lead PI. This is an example of another research collaboration developed out of the Soybean Centers Coordination Group.

The ISU Creamery blended a special ice cream, named SoyFest, made from soy beverage, cream, chocolate and chocolate-covered soybeans that was sampled by attendees of the ISRC’s SoyFest student-focused on-campus event on August 25, 2021. The center found other opportunities for people to enjoy the SoyFest ice cream during events at ISU and the ISA last fall, including:
•The ISRC’s Industry Advisory Council meeting
•The Iowa Soybean Association’s September Board of Directors’ meeting
•The ISU Agronomy Graduate Students’ club cookout
•The Iowa Soy Convening
•The Farm Progress Show planning meeting

ISU hosted the Integrated Crop Management Conference on December 1-2. Greg Tylka, ISRC’s Director and professor of the plant pathology and microbiology department, presented an update on the soybean cyst nematode situation and Kara Berg, communications specialist for the ISRC, captured photos throughout the two-day conference.

In early December, Greg Tylka spoke at the University of Minnesota 2021 Crop Pest Management Short Course about soybean cyst nematode, followed by a meeting with the co-directors of the newly formed Minnesota Soybean Research Center, Seth Naeve and Aaron Lorenz to talk about the Iowa Soybean Research Center.

Future Planning:
Jill Cornelis, ISRC’s Center Administrator, is helping coordinate the Soybean Centers Coordination Group (SCCG) meeting for spring 2022 in St. Louis, Missouri. Representatives from the soybean centers and qualified state soybean boards from Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and Missouri will participate. Note, the University of Minnesota’s newly formed soybean center, Minnesota Soybean Research Center, will soon be part of the SCCG and university personnel plan to participate in the 2022 meeting.

Due to the huge success of the ISRC’s 2021 Meals from the Heartland (MFTH) meal-packaging event, the staff decided to hold the MFTH event annually. Steve May, ISRC’s Industry Partner Recruiter, has started recruiting sponsors, requesting monetary donations, to cover the costs of the meal ingredients. The ISRC staff will recruit volunteers to help package the meals. Our goal is to raise $7,500 to package 30,000 meals in August 2022.

The ISRC staff are making plans to host a summer/fall Field Tour for ISU faculty, staff, and students to visit ag-related businesses. Last year, the center brought a series of six virtual tours of Corteva’s Johnston, Iowa campus and Indianapolis, Indiana campus to our ISU audience. As businesses begin to reopen after the pandemic, the ISRC hopes to offer in-person visits as much as possible.
ISU’s Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology and the Department of Entomology will merge on July 1 to become the Department of Plant Pathology, Entomology and Microbiology.

The center’s staff is planning on hosting the Iowa Soybean Association Board Directors for a one-day campus visit and lunch on September 9. More details will be forthcoming.

The Iowa Soybean Research Center works to support and promote all university research, teaching, and extension activities related to soybean biology, breeding, economics, precision agriculture, production and pest management. The ultimate, long-term goal of the center is to advance understanding of soybean plant biology and to increase soybean production and make production more profitable and environmentally sustainable for Iowa farmers in the future. The center accomplishes its goals by leveraging soybean checkoff dollars with funds from its 14 industry partners to support research. The center's funding priorities are set by the center's Industry Advisory Council, which consists of three farmers and a representative from each industry partner. This council also provides feedback on current soybean research needs. In FY2022, Iowa State University faculty who received funding for projects is as follows: 1) Liang Dong and Steve Whitham, "Low-cost multimodal sensor arrays for early-detection of soybean diseases," 2) Leanor Leandro for "Time of disease onset as an early indicator of soybean resistance to SDS," 3) Prashant Jha, "Enhancing implementation and adoption of non-chemical tactics for integrated weed management in soybean," and 4) Steve Whitham, Lie Tang, and Danny Singh, "Effects of increased atmospheric CO2 and abiotic stress on soybean performance in the Enviratron."

Benefit To Soybean Farmers

The Iowa State University Iowa Soybean Research Center will involve and help coordinate research, teaching, and extension faculty and staff who work in the areas of soybean biology, breeding, economics, precision agriculture, production, and pest management at ISU and the Iowa Soybean Association.

The United Soybean Research Retention policy will display final reports with the project once completed but working files will be purged after three years. And financial information after seven years. All pertinent information is in the final report or if you want more information, please contact the project lead at your state soybean organization or principal investigator listed on the project.