Soybean Research

Development of high oil soybeans for improving the production efficiency of biodiesel in Ontario
Dr. Istvan Rajcan, University of Guelph

Due to its importance as an oilseed crop, soybeans are Ontario’s primary plant-based agriculture-based feedstock for biodiesel production. An increase in oil content from 18 percent to 24 percent of domestically grown soybeans could displace imports and be used to produce a significant amount of Ontario’s biodiesel target. This increase would also alleviate growing concerns in the food versus fuel debate.

This project is aimed at assisting Ontario’s alternative renewable fuels facilities to reduce the cost of extracting soybean oil by increasing the oil yield from Ontario soybean varieties, leading to more cost-effective biodiesel production.

Additionally, Ontario farmers’ profitability will increase by increasing the value of their soybeans through higher oil content. The soybean industry in Ontario is large, dynamic and complex. Change is rapid and constant.

We have developed three breeding populations of soybeans by crossing unrelated high oil parents with the objective of further increasing oil content. The data generated to date on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation populations suggests that a number of lines from these crosses (involving OAC Wallace, RCAT Angora and OAC Glencoe) exhibited one to five percent higher oil contents than the parents, depending on the generation.

We have also developed a method for accurate measurement of oil on single seeds and five gram samples using a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) machine. Molecular markers for high oil have been validated and explained as much as 75 percent of variation in total oil content in one of the populations, OAC Wallace crossed with OAC Glencoe. The results show promise for the development of high oil varieties for Ontario growers using markers, analytical methods and diverse high oil parents in crosses.