Toward Utilization of Historical Data for Soybean Breeding and Management

Field evaluation of crops has been conducted worldwide for decades to develop new cultivars. The collected phenotypic data will be enormous; however, it is not usually utilized further once cultivars are established. Although the true value of the historical data is not recognized well, the data possibly accelerates the efficiency of crop breeding and management, because a data-centric breeding method, genomic selection, has started to be implemented. Enhancing the breeding and management efficiency is expected for various crops including soybean. In particular, soybean is very crucial for global food security, because it can serve as food, oil, and feed. In Japan, field performance tests of soybean have been performed for more than a half-century. To assess the potential of the historical data in soybean breeding and management, we have collected and organized the historical data on the field performance tests. So far, approximately 100,000 phenotypic records taken over 50 years have been collected. These phenotypic records can be linked with weather and soil information. Genomic information is also available for the lines of which seeds are stored in breeding stations and the Japanese gene bank. In this presentation, we will briefly introduce our project, report the progress, and discuss the utilization of historical data in future plant breeding and management.