Just released by the Agricultural Research Service: Soyola—a nontransgenically modified soybean for the southern United States yields oil that doesn't need to be hydrogenated. Hydrogenation produces the bulk of dietary trans fats now recognized as unhealthy for the heart. Soyola would be ideal for frying and salad oil markets. Its oil has half the linolenic acid found in commercial varieties. This polyunsaturated fatty acid degrades easily and causes the "off" or rancid flavors in soybean oil, especially after extended heating. So most soybean oil is now hydrogenated to stabilize it for cooking and extend its shelf life. The plants yielded as well as or better than the commercial cultivars Brim and Dillon during 2 years of tests at 10 locations. Soyola is suited for North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, southern Missouri, northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Seed will be available from N.C. Foundation Seeds, 8220 Riley Hill Rd., Zebulon, NC 27597.

Soybean and Nitrogen Fixation Research Unit, Raleigh, NC
Joseph W. Burton, (919) 515–2734, jburton@cropserv1.cropsci.ncsu.edu

An ARS scientist has identified a soybean yield barrier that, when breached, promises yield potentials of more than 100 bushels per acre. Under normal spring temperatures, full-season soybean varieties grown in the Midwest begin flowering around the first week of July, almost 2 weeks after the June 21 summer solstice, when days start growing shorter and light intensity declines. Exceptionally early warm spring temperatures can trigger flowering in soybeans 2 weeks earlier than normal, bringing the reproductive stage earlier in the growing season when light intensity is higher and increasing the length of the reproductive cycle. This has resulted in irrigated yields above 100 bushels an acre. If breeders can develop earlier-flowering full-season varieties that will begin flowering around the middle of June under normal spring temperatures, the yield potential of soybeans could be increased 15 to 20 bushels an acre. This translates to $75 to $100 more per acre at today's prices. In the meantime, researchers recommend that farmers plant soybeans earlier. The photo/thermal (day length/temperature) barrier to higher soybean yields was first hypothesized by the researcher in 1982, when May temperatures averaged about 64 degrees F—the highest May average since the Ohio maximum yield experiments began in 1977. The 1982 yield averaged 89.4 bushels per acre across 64 soybean lines in the study, and 4 lines exceeded 100 bushels. Most years, the yields are 70 bushels per acre, with some lines yielding 80. In 1998, a similarly warm May gave the researcher a chance to test his hypothesis—and it was confirmed. The yield averaged 80.7 bushels an acre, with some lines over 90. In 1999, with an average May temperature of 62 degrees F, compared to a long-term average of 58 degrees F, yields were 90 bushels per acre again.

Corn and Soybean Research Unit, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Wooster, OH
Richard L. Cooper, (330) 263–3875, cooper.16@osu.edu

Experimental plots at Wooster, OH, that are equipped for both drainage and subirrigation, yielded more than 100 bushels an acre of soybeans in 1999, compared to a nonirrigated yield of 50 to 60 bushels. The secret is the marriage of two ideas developed by ARS scientists at Ohio State University: irrigating through drainage pipes to maintain the water table throughout the growing season, coupled with a high-yield soybean production system. The high-yield system involves early planting of ARS-developed semidwarf soybean varieties in narrow rows at a dense seeding rate. While the record yields don't occur every year, the past 14 years of research with the merged techniques promise consistent annual yields of 70 to 80 bushels an acre. The combined practices also caused a significant increase in experimental corn yields in 1999 because dry conditions greatly lowered yields on fields that were drained but not irrigated—228 versus 131 bushels per acre. Although the practices haven't led to record yields for corn as they have for soybeans, the yield increase in dry years could pay for the cost of modifying the drainage system to irrigate.

Corn and Soybean Research Unit, Wooster, OH
Richard L. Cooper, (330) 263–3875, cooper.16@osu.edu
Soil Drainage Research Unit, Columbus, OH
Norman R. Fausey, (614) 292–9806, fausey.1@osu.edu

Atemoya and sugar apple trees needed no handpollination when sap beetles were enlisted in greater-than-usual numbers to visit the blossoms. The enlistment incentive: yeasty-smelling bread dough and sap beetle attractants, called pheromones, like those ARS scientists had discovered and then synthesized for successful experiments to monitor and control sap beetles in crops where they are pests. University of Florida and ARS researchers loaded pheromones and bread dough into bait stations in flowering sugar apple and atemoya trees. Stymied by screens that kept them out of the stations, the beetles moved on to pollinate blossoms. Atemoya and sugar apple, tropical relatives of the Midwestern native pawpaw, are noted for their delicate mango- and vanillalike flavor and custardlike pulp. The sap beetles—Carpophilus or nitidulid species—that pollinate the trees also sporadically inflict multimillion-dollar damages to many of the world's other minor crops such as figs, dates, and stone fruits. However, no nitidulid pheromones have yet been developed for commercial use.

National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, Peoria, IL
Robert J. Bartelt, (309) 681–6237, bartelrj@mail.ncaur.usda.gov

Saving the world's chocolate crop from pathogenic fungi is the goal of ARS scientists working with a team of international experts. They're using natural controls and other tactics to protect the tropical cacao tree, Theobroma cacao. Chocolate is produced from cacao tree beans. For every dollar of U.S. cacao bean imports, about $1.50 worth of other agricultural commodities are used to make chocolate confections. But three major fungal diseases—black pod rot, frosty pod rot, and witches' broom—can make the beans inedible or unusable. The diseases have caused severe yield losses, causing hardship for 5 to 6 million small farmers in South America, Africa, and Asia. If supplies do not increase for the year 2003 and beyond, a shortfall is forecast. Chemical controls for the fungi don't work very well and are expensive, and fungi-tolerant cultivars are largely unidentified or have not been propagated in sufficient quantities. But ARS scientists have identified and are testing beneficial Trichoderma fungi that control the bad fungi. In the first year of field trials in Peru, scientists sprayed a mix of five strains of Trichoderma on flowers and pods of trees infected with frosty-pod disease, Peru's main cacao disease. The mix increased pod yields more than each strain used alone. In Brazil, researchers are testing new Trichoderma species. One, T. stromaticum, reduced pod infection by witches' broom fungus by 31 percent. ARS scientists are investigating how this Trichoderma works and seeking more economical methods for mass-producing it. The international effort, coordinated by ARS, includes the American Cocoa Research Institute, McLean, VA; M&M Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ; and several international research groups.

Biocontrol of Plant Diseases Laboratory, Beltsville, MD
Robert D. Lumsden/Prakash K. Hebbar, (301) 504–5682
rlumsden@asrr.arsusda.gov
phebbar@asrr.arsusda.gov