USB Aims to Push Yields to 59.5 Bu./A by 2030

Every farmer knows crop yield largely determines profitability. When it comes to soybean and corn yields, corn has long had the edge. But a new effort by the soybean checkoff aims to even the score, boosting U.S. soybean yields and, in turn, the value of every acre planted to soybeans in the United States.

The United Soybean Board (USB) recently committed an unprecedented $3.5 million for research to identify and evaluate soybean genes that increase yields. The three-year project will be conducted by land-grant-university researchers throughout the soybean-growing region of the United States.

The ultimate goal is to increase soybeans’ national yield average from the current 43.6 bushels per acre (bu./a) to 59.5 bu./a by 2030. This would not only increase the profit potential of U.S. soybean farmers, but also help meet increasing global demand for food, feed, fiber and fuel. And all of the research would remain in the public domain.

Funding significant soybean research isn’t new to the checkoff. In 2009, researchers completed sequencing the soybean genome. Since that time, they have developed more than 50,000 markers distributed over all the soybean chromosomes, which have enabled soybean breeders to identify the location of key genes, making incorporating those genes in new U.S. soybean varieties quicker than in the past.

Pending full approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service, researchers involved in the task of identifying and evaluating yield genes will begin work this fall.