Progress is being made toward developing germplasm with tolerance/resistance to mature seed damage in each of the breeding programs. There is a pipeline of breeding material from new crosses for MSD plant rows, and lines in preliminary, advanced and regional uniform tests across southern states. The best of these lines will be evaluated for mature seed disease at initial maturity versus a delayed harvest of up to four weeks. Highest yielding lines with best tolerance to mature seed disease after delayed harvest weeks will be advanced for broader testing. Lines with best performance and seed quality will be released as germplasm or varieties. Collaborations between labs will confirm methods of screening for various fungi associated with seed damage. Fungicide efficacy experiments both in the lab and field center around reducing issues associated with reduced seed quality and increased damage are located in several states across the region in order to capture various aspects of environments conducive to the issue. Outreach efforts are being compiled and either distributed as presentations at meetings, published in peer reviewed journals or on the Crop Protection Network.

New breeding lines with good agronomics can be entered into the Uniform Soybean Tests to obtain data to justify releases. It would be interesting for the new breeding lines to be tested together in the field in multiple states to evaluate the utility of lines. More work needs to be done to determine which specific pathogens cause visible seed damage in Mississippi and how that varies from year to year. A difficulty with this type of research is that the plots need to be harvested as they mature, not when the entire trial is mature. This is very time consuming at a time of year when there is a lot to be done. Analysis of yield trial data will lead to selections of new lines with resistance to MSSD that have high yields. Some of these may be released as new germplasm lines or cultivars. Large seed increase of cultivars will need to take place to turn over genetic seed stocks to a marketing association to provide commercial seeds to farmers.