Soybeans are the world's largest source of animal protein feed and the second largest source of vegetable oil. The United States is the leading soybean producer and exporter. The soybean production regions in the southern USA favor enhanced protein, providing farmers with the opportunity to produce high protein soybeans. Increasing yield and reducing the cost of production is imperative to increase soybean production in the Southeast. The most effective strategy to accomplish these goals is to develop high yielding, multiple-disease and pest resistant cultivars with value-enhanced traits.

Develop high-yielding soybean varieties adapted to Georgia with enhanced seed composition, and pest and pathogen resistance. Georgia soybean growers will be the primary beneficiaries of this research through their reduced production costs and higher seed yields of second generation glyphosate or glufosinate tolerant and nematode resistant soybean varieties that are of greater value to the poultry and swine industries. Weeds are a major production problem and development of herbicide tolerance cultivars will help farms control weeds.

Since 2008, UGA has had access to Monsanto (Bayer now) second generation glyphosate tolerance technology–Roundup Ready 2 Yield® that has been reported to provide increased yield of soybean. With GACC’s support, we have developed strong pipeline materials of soybean using this new RR2Y technology. Three RR2Y cultivars were released in 2014 and one RR2Y cultivar released in 2016. In 2010, UGA obtained access to Bayer’s (BASF now) LibertyLink which provides tolerance to glufosinate herbicide for better weed control as an alternative weed control platform. This has provided Georgia soybean growers with the opportunity to select the efficient and cost effective herbicide technology against glyphosate-tolerant weeds. With GACC support, we also have had strong pipeline materials of soybean using this new technology. Two LibertyLink cultivars were released in 2016 and licensed to two seed companies for commercialization in 2017.