New SIL Soybean Seed Catalog Released!! March 3, 2023
We are excited to inform you of a remarkable advancement for the Soybean Innovation Lab community. The Seed Catalog is here, and it is the first-of-its-kind soybean variety catalog that connects high-yielding varieties from breeding programs and private companies with businesses and organizations interested in licensing and commercializing them.
Figure 1: PAT Seed Catalog
The Seed Catalog is the result of the Pan-African Trial (PAT) Program, a market-led network of seed practitioners who operate trials to fast-track the introduction, testing, registration, and commercialization of improved soybean varieties. This innovative program has successfully expanded from one country and four locations to 30 countries and 140 locations, involving 56 public-sector and 66 private-sector partners. The PAT network generates critical varietal performance data ranging from yield and days to maturity to protein and oil and disease resistance. The formal trial protocol, training and use of electronic data capture, and the commitment by invested seed practitioners assures high quality data ready to support the selection and registration process. To date 388 different varieties have been tested in the trial network, and 65 soybean varieties are currently in the commercial pipeline.
The Seed Catalog features five leading soybean seed originators whose varieties are among the 388 varieties available for license: IITA, Seed Co, DARS-Malawi, CBI-Zimbabwe, and Semillas Panorama- Colombia. These organizations are prime examples of the impact of the PAT Program and highlight the importance of building a sustainable seed system for Africa. IITA, for instance, has tested 203 varieties in 148 locations, with 6 varieties registered and 5 varieties licensed. SeedCo, which is a direct sales company has tested 46 varieties in 138 locations and released 8 new varieties for sale to farmers.
Figure 2: African macro-environments (ME) based on data from the PAT Program
The PAT Program welcomes new trial operators looking to identify and license new products. Please contact SIL PAT manager Dr. Guilherme Torres (gtorress@illinois.edu)
Originators and licensees looking to register and commercialize new seed varieties, please contact SIL commercial manager Josy Francischini (josyf@illinois.edu)
Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Soybean Value Chain Research (Soybean Innovation Lab)
1301 West Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL 61801 * Tel. (217) 333-7425 * soybeaninnovationlab@illinois.edu
