Wild soybeans are beneficial to cultivated soybean crops, helping to create increased yields in lands that are less fertile and saline, the latest soybean genomic research has found.

This ground-breaking genomic research was named Homecoming of Soybeans for two reasons: the project was conducted by an all-Chinese team and was conducted in the home of soybeans - China.

The decade-long research was a joint project between the State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (SKL-CUHK) and Beijing Genomics Institute at Shenzhen. Researchers decoded the genomes of 17 wild and 14 cultivated soybean accessions and charted their differences.

Lam Hon-ming, deputy-director of SKL-CUHK, described the project as "a deep collaboration between Hong Kong and mainland scientists". "Previously, high-end research in soybeans was mainly completed in advanced countries like the USA. It is the first time such a big genomic project on soybeans was completed in China and the scientists involved were all Chinese," Lam said.

Soybeans are one of the two major crops in China and a major source of protein in the human diet. Apart from being rich in nutrition, soybeans also are used in industrial products and are an essential biodiesel fuel.

China's domestically produced crops supply only one-third of demand. Thus, the country has to spend billions of US dollars to purchase soybeans, making it the world's largest soybean importer.

Despite its importance, the supply of soybeans is decreasing owing to the continuous depletion of high quality arable lands and fresh water resources in China and in the world.

Professor Lam's team successfully decoded the genomes of wild soybeans which can adapt to adverse environments. Testing of new drought and salinity soybean lines have been conducted in arid regions in Northwestern China and saline lands in Northern China.

Soybeans also are environmentally friendly crops that can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere in quantities of up to 100 kilograms/hectare/year. "Through our study, we have identified the anti-drought and anti-saline soybeans and hopefully we can increase crop yields of soybeans by planting them in adverse lands," Lam said.

The study found that wild soybeans contain rich biodiversity and gene resources. However, the shrinkage of the natural habitat has posed an alarming threat to the conservation of wild soybeans. Meanwhile, cultivated soybeans have a narrow biodiversity creating a negative impact on sustainability.

Comparison between the differences in the genomes of wild and cultivated soybeans will facilitate the recovery of important genes lost during human artificial selection.

The finding will be published as the cover story in the December edition of Nature Genetics, the renowned journal on genetics equivalent to Nature and Science in stature.

China Daily

(HK Edition 11/16/2010 page1)