Updated February 23, 2021:
Raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs) present in soybean meal reduce metabolizable energy for monogastric animals; therefore, development of low RFO soybean meal is of great interest to the swine and poultry industries. Modified carbohydrate composition is considered the most promising meal trait due to the potential value to the animal industry and the lack of negative agronomic impacts. Previous results from poultry feeding studies conducted by this team indicate that a statistically significant improvement in feed conversion ratio in chickens can be obtained from reducing RFOs and increasing sucrose in soybean seeds.
With a multi-institutional team with broad expertise, we have our efforts on developing and commercializing new soybean varieties with improved soluble carbohydrate composition and an improved nutritional bundle in a range of maturity groups (MG I-V).

Our Objectives are: 1) Develop of soybean varieties with >7% sucrose and lower RFO’s (1-2%) that results in an increase of ME up to of 100 kcal per pound of meal; 2) Support value-enhanced meal, value-capture, and market development using data science methods.

There are different genes and alleles involved on these traits, therefore different combinations are always valuable. Each team focus on its environment’s factors, such as temperature, light, soil and rain conditions, but we are also focused on developing varieties that can be adopted in a range of environments, focusing on maturity groups MGI-V.For that purpose, we are working on stability and adaptability experiments, so that we can 1) understand how the sucrose and RFO’s content respond to different environments; 2) Identify germplasms that are better for these traits for a wider range of experiments.
In the current stage all teams have finished harvesting and are analyzing data. Advances to regional and uniform trials may occur in January/February. Winter nurseries and green houses have already been planted so that the breeding pipelines will keep on track.

We are also working on combining HOLL oil trait plus the ultra-low RFO trait or normal RFO and having these different sets of seeds for poultry studies. For that propose we harvested 15 ton of each NIL set that will be used on animal feeding studies conducted by our animal nutrition partner. That will enable soybean meal performance comparisons of the normal RFO or Low RFO high oleic/low linoleic acid (HOLL) oil trait.