Breeding New and Improved Soybean Cultivars with High Yield and Local Adaptation.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture's Soybean Breeding Program has been working towards developing conventional and non-conventional high-yielding maturity group (MG) 4 and 5 soybean cultivars. These cultivars have a complete disease package and are widely adapted to Arkansas' environment. The Soybean Breeding Program has previously released several conventional and glyphosate-tolerant cultivars. Our breeding pipeline begins with the combination of elite lines crossed to exotic materials that are new, previously developed in our program, or identified in external breeding programs. Additionally, crosses may include materials developed by other breeding programs in the southern states, often including essential disease and pest tolerance traits. After completing the initial crosses, 4-generation advancements are conducted until reaching plant homozygosity. Single plant selections are performed based on plant architecture and physiological traits. Afterward, entries resulting from individual plant selections with the best performance are advanced and evaluated for 3 consecutive years in multi-location yield trials. Only lines with excellent adaptation, high yield performance, and an adequate disease package are selected and advanced to the next cycle each year. Finally, promising lines are further evaluated in the Arkansas State Variety Testing, the United States Department of Agriculture Uniform Soybean Tests, and other southern states' official variety testing programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]