b'IS HIGH-PROTEIN, HIGH-YIELDING SOY POSSIBLE?How American and Canadian scientists are tackling soys biggest breeding problem.Julienne Isaacs FOR SOYBEAN BREEDERS,coupling highIn the U.S., Diers says the commodity yields with high protein is the Holy Grail,grain system rewards farmers for yield and but its not likely to happen anytime soon. not for protein, because farmers are paid In plant breeding terms, the relation- based on the weight of grain delivered, ship between soybean yield and protein isnot on protein levels. Therefore, there called negative or inverse: when breed- is little incentive for producers to grow ers select for high-yielding traits, seedlower-yielding, higher-protein soy varieties.protein levels tend to decrease, and whenIn Canada, the situation is a little dif-soybean protein is the priority, yields tendferent; while producers are also paid for to drop. yield, they are paid a premium for grow- What is theAccording to Brian Diers, Charles Adlaiing higher-protein food grade soybean Ewing Chair of Soybean Genetics andvarieties. Premiums differ depending45% Barrier?Breeding at the University of Illinois, theon the buyer, but remain high enough problem comes down to resource alloca- that non-GM, food-grade soy constitutes tion in the soybean plant.roughly 30% of the soy market in Ontario, It actually takes a fair amount ofaccording to Istvan Rajcan, a professor45%energy from the plant to produce pro- of soybean breeding and genetics at the teinit has to fix nitrogen, make aminoUniversity of Guelph.is the magical acids and deposit proteins in the seed, heMost Canadian food-grade soy isnumber in the explains.produced in Ontario and Quebec, with a It requires more energy, for example,smaller amount on Prince Edward Island.soybean protein/than to make carbohydrates. One reasonFurther west, most soy is grown for oilyield relationship.why corn yields are much higher than soy- crush with meal sold to animal feed, butOnce a varietybean yields is because the corn kernels arelower-protein meal still means lower- hits 45% proteinmostly composed of carbohydrates, whichquality animal feed, and soybean produc-is a much less expensive product for theers are not compensated for higher-proteinand above,plant to produce. soybean meal. yield But although international markets for high-protein soybean meal are grow- The 45% Barrier suffers.ingfood-grade soybean meal is usedIn the 1990s, a high-protein soybean for tofu in Asian marketsprotein hasvariety called Harovinton was developed historically tended to lose out to yield inat Agriculture and Agri-Food Canadas soybean breeding programs on both sidesResearch Center in Harrow, Ont. of the border.Harovinton yielded 48 to 49% protein 22GERMINATION.CAMARCH 2020'