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Jamal Faghihi (top), Virginia Ferris and Rick Vierling developed soybeans with complete, broad-based resistance to the soybean cyst nematode. The late John Ferris was also a member of the research team. CystX® soybeans are expected to be available to farmers in 2005. (Photo by Tom Campbell) |
Growing a better soybean
Another Purdue-corporate partnership is helping some farmers battle a costly agricultural pest and giving others the opportunity to grow soybeans for the first time.
A joint venture between Purdue and Access Plant Technology, Inc. will give farmers access to high-yield soybeans with complete, broad-based resistance to the soybean cyst nematode, a serious agricultural pest responsible for losses totaling $1.4 billion per year in the United States alone.
A team of Purdue Agriculture researchers that included Virginia Ferris, professor of entomology; her late husband John Ferris, professor of nematology; Jamal Faghihi, research and Purdue Extension nematologist; and Rick Vierling, adjunct professor of agronomy and director of the genetics program at the Indiana Crop Improvement Association, received funding through check-off funds from the Indiana Soybean Board to develop the resistant soybeans. The soybeans are the product of years of genetic analysis and selective breeding, but they are not genetically modified organisms. The technology, CystX®, is patented and licensed to Access Plant Technology, which specializes in marketing and commercialization of plant-based technology. CystX® soybeans are expected to be widely available to farmers for the 2005 planting season.
The technology will have an enormous impact on soybean producers, the researchers say. “People tell us that we've saved their farms, because they just couldn't produce soybeans before, and they didn't have a good rotation with their corn,” Vierling says. Ferris adds, “We have been in labs for our entire careers, and it feels so good to be doing something that's truly useful to the agricultural community.”
Purdue's partnership with Access Plant Technology was pivotal in moving the research out of the lab and into the hands of seed developers. “This particular technology required significant development to bring to market,” Trana says. “CystX® probably would not have penetrated the market without the full effort of Access Plant Technology. Everybody wins in this situation—farmers benefit from having a pest-resistant crop; local seed producers benefit from having an improved product to provide to their customers; and Purdue benefits by routing revenues generated by the technology back into research programs.”
When Ferris looks back on the years of work, she is reminded of one of her college professors. “We had a professor who would tell us, ‘Your work isn't worth much until you've put more beans in the farmer's basket,'” she says. “So John, my husband, used to say, ‘Well, now, we're putting more beans in the farmer's basket.' I know Professor Thorne would be happy.”
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