Technology allows selecting soybean cultivars with better quality seeds

With global climate change, soybean producers have been faced with new problems in farming, which have resulted in major economic losses. One of them is the formation of greenish seeds, in contrast to the yellow ones, suitable for commercialization.

This phenomenon is caused by the retention of chlorophyll in the seed and grain due to climatic variations in crops, such as the occurrence of extreme temperatures and the lack of rain during the soybean seed development period, in addition to genetic factors, explains Edvaldo Aparecido Amaral da Silva, professor at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at the São Paulo State University (Unesp), Botucatu campus.

“The green seed problem causes 10% loss in soybean production per year. This represents 36 million tons of lost grain and US$12 billion in economic losses annually,” said Amaral da Silva during a workshop promoted by FAPESP and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), on November 25, with the aim of present the results of projects jointly supported by the two institutions in recent years.

Through a the project selected for one of the joint calls launched in bioeconomy, the researcher established a collaboration with colleagues from Wageningen University and Research, in the Netherlands, and Embrapa Soja, with the aim of advancing the understanding of the basic mechanisms associated with the degradation of chlorophyll in oilseeds – one of the main limiting factors for developing solutions to the green seed problem.

The project resulted in the development of molecular markers (SNPs) that make it possible to select early oilseed genotypes with tolerance to the formation of green seeds.

To develop the technology, the researchers analyzed the approximately 60 soybean genes and found ten candidate genes. One of them turned out to be the most promising for avoiding the green seed problem.

“Our expectation is to reduce the waiting time to obtain a new soybean cultivar that does not present the green seed problem from 13 to six years,” stated Amaral da Silva.

Renewal of scientific cooperation

FAPESP and NWO have had a scientific cooperation agreement since 2012, which was renovated in early November for another five years.

The objective of the partnership is to stimulate long-term research collaboration between Brazil and the Netherlands through the financing of joint research with the aim of strengthening the countries' international position in science and the global impact of the results.

Funding is granted to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary consortia from São Paulo and research groups from the Netherlands. Supported projects must be aligned with national research agendas, as well as international initiatives, such as the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“FAPESP’s collaboration with NWO is one of our most strategic international partnerships and the renewal of the agreement for the second time is a reflection of the success of this collaboration. We have launched calls almost annually and the supported projects are closely monitored by both agencies, with the organization of meetings that facilitate learning and the exchange of experiences. In addition to bilateral calls, we work in collaboration within the scope of the Global Research Council [GRC, an entity that brings together research funding agencies from different countries], being co-hosts of the GRC Annual Meeting that will be held in The Hague in 2023", said Luiz Eugênio Mello , scientific director of FAPESP.

In August, the two agencies launched a call for proposals jointly with the theme “Designed biomaterials: advanced materials for health”. The call was the ninth launched jointly by the two institutions.

“We had previously launched three calls in the area of ​​bioeconomy, with a very explicit transdisciplinary approach, which means that we would like teams of researchers with supported projects to work together with the government, non-governmental organizations and other types of industrial and social partners so that research results have an impact”, said Anita Hardon, member of the NWO executive committee, at the opening of the workshop.