Managing for Profit

Agreement puts high oleic technology in growers’ reach

The Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council has granted a license to Des Moines based Schillinger Genetics to commercialize soybeans with non-GMO high oleic and low linolenic traits.  The soybeans yield oil with a longer shelf life and with no trans fats. Company president John Schillinger tells Brownfield the traits are bred conventionally.

“The organic segment is growing,” Schillinger told Brownfield Ag News at the Missouri Soybean Association’s Bay Farm research facility near Columbia, Missouri.  “Our varieties would be qualified for organic grain production.  They’re relatively small [compared] to the total soybean acreage in the United States, but they’re growing.”

The USDA’s Agricultural Research Service approached a specific component of the soybean that has, until recently, limited the functionality of soy-based cooking oil.

Project researcher, USDA molecular biologist Dr. Kristin Bilyeu, said following the signing ceremony, that it’s the kind of day that is gratifying to a scientist.

“Today is the day we can celebrate that an end result is here,” Bilyeu told Brownfield Ag News.  “There’s a company that is going to take this technology and provide [soybean] varieties that are going to be great varieties for farmers to have new opportunities.”

The soybeans will be available to plant in 2018 in maturity groups III and IV, appropriate for Missouri’s latitudes.  Schillinger says maturity groups for most other U.S. growing areas will be available in the next two to three years.

AUDIO: John Schillinger, Kristin Bilyeu, John Kelley and Gary Wheeler (3 min. MP3)