The project consistently exceeds in accomplishing the proposed milestones and delivering tangible and significant outcomes important for US soybean agriculture since the project was funded. The project integrated state-of-art genomics, data science, gene editing technologies and collaborative field research and made several significant discoveries with a broad and significant impact on improving soybean seed protein, oil and yield, three of the most important output traits in determining US soybean economics and farmer profitability. For example, the project discovered multiple genes for the QTLs that US soybean breeders use extensively in seed quality improvement. The project conducted the comprehensive studies to demonstrate their critical role in US soybean seed quality improvement. We published two research reports in prestigious peer-reviewed journals (Plos Genetics and Nature Communication). One of the publications was also selected by the editors as one of the 50 best papers recently published in an area of plant and agriculture. Recently, we have made a great progress in figuring out how the QTLs control the seed quality and yield traits and testing new strategies to use the protein and oil QTL genes for developing commercially viable cultivars to increase the use of soybean and profit of US soybean farmers. We also made significant progress in developing new soybean with improved protein, oil and/or other seed quality and yield traits. In FY 2023, We met all milestones and made multiple important discoveries in addition to the proposed milestones in the project (See detailed Progress Status): Having applied gene edited and conventional transgenic technologies, we generated more than two dozen of new edited and transgenic soybean containing improved protein, improved oil, and both. In collaboration with US soybean breeders, we conducted filed evaluation for a dozen of those new soybeans at different maturity regions with an aim to develop a set of new genetic materials for soybean breeding or new cultivars with improved seed quality and yield. The project made significant progress from data-driven discovery to field evaluation of new soybean for seed quality and yield improvement. It provides fundamental knowledge for current US soybean breeding and for developing a new solution for soybean improvement in seed quality and yield improvement. In addition, we made several significant discoveries for additional traits and genes important to soybean seed quality, soybean growth behavior, and resilience to environmental changes. We have performed molecular characterization and grown a set of new soybean lines in greenhouse to examine those new phenotypes in detail. The greenhouse and field experiments will determine feasibility and test new strategies to use the new discoveries for seed quality and yield improvement.

The project is highly complementary to current soybean breeding effort, which extensively uses the two QTLs in soybean seed quality improvement breeding. The project has generated fundamental understanding of how the QTL genes control the seed protein and oil content and their interplay with seed yield and other important traits. It develops strategies to develop new soybeans containing improved seed quality and yield, the major traits determining US soybean economic value, competitiveness in the world market and profit for US soybean farmers. In addition, the project has applied state-of-the-art technologies to develop a dozen new soybeans containing improved protein content, oil content or both high protein and oil with a potential increasing field yield. The new soybeans can be used as a new genetic resource for breeding or be developed directly into new cultivars containing higher protein, higher oil and higher yield. The project creates new opportunities for use, uptake or adoption of soy. They would include observable shifts in behavior and/or practice changes that create greater opportunities for soy and fuel demand growth. It also serves as a demonstration project to enhance use of newly emerging data-science and gene editing in US soybean research and product development, which eventually increase/maintain competitiveness of US soybean research in the world.