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Soybean Checkoff Makes Research Accessible To Industry

The soy checkoff’s latest collaboration brought Qualified State Soybean Boards (QSSBs) together to maximize the results of checkoff-funded research projects in the most effective way possible: bringing the findings to farmers. The redesigned Soybean Research & Information Network (SRIN) website — soybeanresearchinfo.com — was launched through a joint effort by the North Central Soybean Research Program (NCSRP) and the United Soybean Board (USB) to give farmers a virtual resource full of information and toolkits for more efficient soybean production.

This is a one-stop shop for all the information the checkoff has discovered through farmer investments regarding key problem areas in production, such as tolerance and resilience. Each article on the SRIN website provides insight and explanation on the research findings and links directly to the study in the overall database for further exploration.

“The soy checkoff and QSSBs have worked together to find solutions, best practices and data on key issues and have made that available for all farmers to use,” said Tim Venverloh, USB Vice President of Sustainability Strategy.

The farmer-leaders of USB and QSSBs determine which research is funded — geared toward addressing farmers’ specific and most pressing needs and uncovering opportunities to build profits for soybean farmers.

“I had no idea how much valuable research the checkoff has made possible,” said Lindsay Greiner, USB farmer-leader from Keota, Iowa. “Some of these projects are clear and actionable, such as providing data on what fungicides will provide good disease control based on the most prevalent diseases that can really threaten yield. There doesn’t seem to be a limit for how far it can go to help our industry.”

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Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”