Mississippi growers' investment in research is helping support projects that promise long-term benefits for producers, said Dr. Tom Helms, associate director of the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station. Their research is a good investment for the soybean industry and for Mississippi. The initial goal of the research is to develop a transformation system for soybean plants. It generally takes about two years to develop a transformation system, but once you have it in place, you can introduce new genes fairly quickly. Isolation of a nematode-resistance gene for introduction into soybeans is one of the genetic engineering project's goals.
Nematodes are major pest for soybeans, attacking the plants' root systems.
Parrott's lab is one of three in the nation conducting soybean genetics research supported by the United Soybean Board. Reichert said Parrott has developed a transformation system that works with a few soybean varieties. We have been to Georgia to study his system. What we learned in Georgia has saved us several months of research start-up time. Reichert, Tyler and Dan are working with 14 soybean varieties and plan to add more, with the hope of developing a transformation system that will work with any soybean variety.