The Center for Soybean Improvement's overall goal is the development of contemporary soybean cultivars which increase profitability of soybean growers, enhance the quality and reduce the cost of soybean products in human and animal diets, and reduce impact to the environment from soybean production. This goal will be accomplished through the integration of classical and molecular breeding technologies allowing reduction of the cultivar development period and improvement of historically intractable traits. The specific objectives include:
Develop soybean cultivars adapted to Southeastern environments with enhanced productivity, quality and pest resistance;
Improve soybean value via enhancement of seed composition;
Develop germplasm and genomic resources to improve resistance to root-knot nematodes, reniform nematode, and defoliating insects;
Develop germplasm and cultivars with improved drought tolerance, and;
Mine exotic germplasm for superior alleles at yield QTL.
