History of Soy

Soybeans: The Success Story - p.3

In 1878, while in Europe, Dr. George H. Cook and James Nielson of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station obtained soybean seed at the Bavarian Agricultural Experiment Station and at the Vienna Exposition. The seeds were planted at the College Farm in May 1879 and harvested in October. The results were encouraging. This is the first report of soybeans having been tested at a land grant institution in the United States. Within a short time, soybean seeds were introduced from Japan and China by McBryde (Tennessee), Sturtevant (Cornell Univ.), Brooks (Hatch, Massachusetts) and Georgeson (Kansas). During the last two decades of the 19th century soybeans were grown at almost every agricultural station in the country. The crop was tested for use in pastures, as hay, silage and soiling, alone or in combinations with other crops. Feeding experiments were continued with horses, poultry, sheep, cattle and milk cows. All parts of the plant were chemically analyzed. Some experimenters lauded the value of the soybean while others considered it worthless. Between 1860 and 1899 there were approximately 186 publications about the soybean in the United States. (1)

In 1888, in Germany, Hellriegal and Wilfarth demonstrated that legumes fix nitrogen when nodulated by a microorganism present in soil extracts. In 1893, W. P. Brooks of the Massachusetts (Hatch) Station reported that soybean yields were highest when nodules were most abundant. Brooks then conducted what is considered a classic experiment. He placed never before cropped soil into pots and planted seed from three soybean cultivars originally from Japan. In one series of pots he added a pinch of dust collected from the floor where soybeans had been thrashed and the other series of pots were his control. The results were striking. In the pots receiving a pinch of dust, the plants were greener, more vigorous, and the seed yields much larger than the controls. In addition, the roots of the plants that received the pinch of dust were found to contain nodules. Soil from Brook's experiment was sent to New Jersey and Kansas stations and his results were confirmed. Commercial soybean inoculum was made available by 1905. This was the first major technological advance in the successful rooting of the soybean in the North America.

In 1898, the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction was established within the USDA to centralize introduction activities. Introduced plants were assigned permanent numbers under the Plant Introduction (P.I.) designation system. The first soybean listed in the P.I. system was P.I. 480 from South Ussurie, Siberia. The seeds were received from Professor N. E. Hansen in March, 1898.

PATHS OF DISSEMINATION: NORTH AMERICA (LATE PERIOD)

William J. Morse was born in Lowville, New York in 1884. He received a B.S. degree from Cornell University in June, 1907 and immediately joined the USDA as a scientific assistant under Dr. Charles V. Piper, Office of Forage Crops. His first assignment was to test soybean cultivars at the Arlington Farm, Virginia. Thus began the 42 year USDA career of Bill Morse who more than any other person rightly deserves the title "The Father of Soybeans in the United States". With great singleness of purpose and devotion his entire career was focused on the rooting and nurturing of the soybean and the soybean industry in the United States.

In 1910, Piper and Morse coauthored "The Soybean: History, Varieties, and Field Studies", an 84 page bulletin. This was Morse's first of 80 plus publications on the soybean. His most famous publication was the 1923 book The Soybean coauthored by Piper and Morse, published by McGraw Hill Book Company. In 1920, Morse was a founder of the American Soybean Association.

At the beginning of this period there were perhaps 8 soybean cultivars grown in the U.S. However, new soybean accessions were introduced into the U.S. by Piper from India and Frank N. Meyer from China. Unfortunately, Meyer died in 1918 while on a plant exploration trip in China. First, the American Genetic Association, and now, the Crop Science Society of America, annually present an award named after Meyer to an individual for outstanding contributions in the areas of plant exploration and germplasm resources.

Two major technological advances occurred during this period. In 1917, Osborne and Mendel demonstrated that unheated soybean meal is inferior in nutritional quality to properly heated soybean meal. Thus, the value of soybean seed meal as a feed and the potential for the development of a soybean processing industry were established.

In 1920, Gamer and Allard recognized the significance of length of day in the flowering behavior of soybeans and termed the response photoperiodism. An understanding of photoperiod in relation to cultivar adaptation is of extreme importance to the plant breeder. Today, in North America, soybeans are classified into 3 maturity groups (MG) based upon the effects of daylength on time to the appearance of first flowers. In Canada and northem parts of the U.S., most cultivars are indeterminate and have relatively short crop durations; they are classified as MG 000, 00, and O. In the central states, cultivars from MG II, III, IV, and V are grown. Those adapted to the subtropical and tropical zones are often determinate, have relatively long crop durations, and are classified in MG IX and X.

The first two decades of the 20th century set the stage for the successful rooting of the soybean in the United States. During this period of time about 920 articles concerning the soybean were published in the U.S. (1)

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