Updated January 24, 2021:
Final Report
Despite soybean meal accounting for 70% of the total value of soybean, the meal protein contents of recent commercial soybean cultivars in the U.S. have slowly dipped below 47.5%, needed for the national and international soybean meal markets and are reflective of a long-term pattern of slow decline in seed protein content. The negative correlations of seed protein with seed yield and oil have been major constraints to the development of soybean lines with high meal protein without reduction in yield or oil. Another major concern is that U.S. varieties trace to a very narrow genetic base with low seed protein. This project develops U.S. adapted high-yielding soybean lines with improved meal protein and amino acid composition profiles by expanding the genetic diversity. Variety development is supported by discovering useful new accessions, genes, and molecular markers for increased protein and essential amino acids based in the genetic diversity in cultivated and wild soybean. We report excellent progress in all areas in this project in FY20, including the release of nine high yielding cultivars/germplasm with high-meal protein and/or high genetic diversity, thus exceeding our target for FY20. Twelve papers were published on our research results in refereed journals and many presentations were made in professional and stakeholder meetings in FY20.

Cultivar/germplasm releases: We released nine new lines during FY20, in addition to eight lines released during FY19 that meet the targeted criteria above (Table 1). Each of the lines was tested for stability of seed protein and seed yield in more than 20 environments across several states and years.
Private Company Outreach: Several of our recent releases have been used by private companies. Highpro1 (Mian), E11128T (Wang), S14-9653 (Scaboo), S09-13185 (Chen), and M10-2017102 (Lorenz) are few of the lines being used by the private seed companies. Additionally, two advanced breeding lines M13-264022 and M10-314001 developed by Lorenz at UMN was transferred to two private companies for evaluation via MTA. Seed of the high protein variety TN15-5007 is being increased by Tennessee Advanced Genetics, Inc. and will be available for sale to farmers in winter/spring 2021.
Table 1. Lines released in FY20
Line name MG Yield Protein Oil Meal Protein Exotic Pedigree breeder/state
%check 13% M % %
M11-314101 I 96 37.0 18.3 49 - Lorenz, MN
E15079T II 98 37.0 19.0 50 - Wang, MI
HM15-H006 II 95 37.5 18.2 49.8 - McHale, OH
HM16-M019 III 95 35.8 19.4 48.2 - McHale, OH
S16-16641R IV 96 38.0 18.0 50 - Chen, MO
TN14-4304 IV 100 36.1 19.2 48 - Pantalone, TN
S09-13185C V 100 37.7 18.5 50 - Chen, MO
USDA-N6005 VI 100 36.9 18.3 49 25 Mian, NC
G11-7103 VII 98 38 19 50 50 Li, GA

High performing lines derived from wild soybean: From the USDA Regional trials, we identified 2 breeding lines, N14- 8537 (MG7) and N16-9198 (MG7), that have elevated protein and similar yields of the checks. Based on the summary result over locations from 2019, N14- 8537 showed 37.4% and 17.8% protein and oil content respectively (data represented at 13% moist). N16-9198 showed elevated protein content of 38.4% however, the oil content was around 16.8%. this line also showed higher Meal value of 50.1% which was higher or similar to the tested checks with the same maturity group. The yield value of N14-8537 and N16-9198 was 37 and 43 bu/ac respectively. Both lines have 25% pedigree derived from wild soybean PI 366122. In 2020, we also yield tested hundreds of new breeding lines derived from wild soybean in local yield trials. Several lines with 25-50% G. soja backgrounds by pedigree producing more than 90% check yield and >48% meal protein will be ready for release during FY21. These are in addition to 17 lines with 50% soja backgrounds that were released during FY19.