2019 ASHS Annual Conference

Edamame has quickly become the second largest soy-food consumed in the U.S. (around 25,000 to 30,000 tons annually), but no less than 70% of edamame rely on imports. To reverse this condition, stakeholders identified the need for improved varieties to overcome the main barriers including mechanical harvest, weed management and consumer acceptance. Therefore, the objective of this project is to breed new edamame varieties with better adaptation than commercial cultivars with exotic background, and improved appearance and flavor. Twenty-four advanced edamame breeding lines and three commercial edamame cultivars as checks were grown in Blacksburg, VA, Painter, VA and Little Rock, AR in 2018. Pest evaluation such as soybean aphids and damaged pod number, edamame quality data such as pod length and weight of 10 pods, bean compositions such as sugar content, sensory evaluation data such as appearance and taste were collected from one to three locations. Results showed that there are potential breeding lines performed similar or better than the checks. For example, V16-0547 received the highest score of the consumer acceptance of 6.09, a little better, but not significantly, than the check of Asmara, 6.05, particular in Painter, VA (6.44). R14-6238 also showed long pods of 48.7 mm, very close to the check with the largest pods (49 mm). The significant variation of soybean aphids and other diseases was also observed among breeding lines. The data of breeding lines are still under analysis, so the decision of breeding selection will be reported at the conference. We will continue the trial using selected advanced breeding lines and new advanced lines at the same locations in 2019, and plan to release superior edamame varieties with two-year trials in 2020.