Covering the Land of Lincoln

Crop researcher focuses on better food production | Crops

Marty Williams grew up on his family’s grain and livestock farm in rural northern Missouri. He enjoyed exploring and working on a 600-acre “laboratory.”

He took great interest in biology and ecology classes because it helped him make sense of some of his observations on the farm. When he worked on a research project studying the fitness cost of triazine resistance in jimsonweed, he discovered he not only had a proclivity for agronomy research, but wanted to apply himself to solving problems for those who produce our food.

That set him on the path he travels today as an ecologist for the Agricultural Research Service, based in Urbana, Illinois.

IFT: What is a typical day like in research at USDA during the growing season?

WILLIAMS: Usually I’m working through critical emails by 7:30 am By 8 am I’m often meeting with my crew to confirm our plans for the day. Some days I’m headed to the field for research activities, and other days I’m in the office to keep the wheels on the program. In the last decade, we’ve had on-farm research throughout Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. So there’s usually several weeks out of the growing season which involve putting several miles on a pickup truck. I enjoy traveling to a new area, getting into production fields and meeting with growers and industry folks. I always learn something valuable.

IFT: Can you tell us about a specific research project that farmers can relate to?

WILLIAMS: About 10 years ago we did a research project that was ranked a top issue for the Midwest Food Products Association. They wanted to know how to reduce plant densities of processing sweet corn to save seed costs. Our subsequent research in Urbana showed wide variability in plant density tolerance of popular hybrids being used. We found hybrids that had higher density tolerance yielded considerably better. So the seminal question was not how to reduce seed costs, but how to identify and use density-tolerant hybrids.

When I was presenting our findings at a winter meeting in Wisconsin, during a coffee break, a grower invited me to conduct research on his farm, to identify how he should grow such improved hybrids. It was an excellent idea, and the perfect next step. We subsequently conducted on-farm trials throughout the region over a five-year period to identify economically optimum plant densities of density-tolerant processing sweet corn.

Today, seed companies with sweet corn breeding programs are improving density tolerance because food processors and their contract growers are demanding further improvements in plant density tolerance. And not just here in the US I’ve been invited to far corners of the world, from Quebec to Israel to New Zealand, to share this research. And I have a grower in central Wisconsin to thank, among others.

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IFT: How did you get interested in edamame research?

WILLIAMS: I started getting calls from food processors asking how to control weeds in edamame. I knew almost nothing about the crop. I discovered there was only a single herbicide federally registered for use on the crop — a generic version of sethoxydim.

IFT: What is the focus of that research? How do you see it affecting the future of bean growing?

WILLIAMS: I knew right away that we could help the industry by providing more solutions to weed management. We identified herbicides registered in soybean that might be useful in edamame production, but first we had to confirm crop tolerance so that herbicide manufacturers would support the potential registration. Leaving no stone unturned, we assembled a diversity panel of edamame — some 130 lines — basically anything that might be grown in the US at the time. To date, US growers now have nine herbicides from eight sites of action, a 24C label for another herbicide, and three additional products that show promise.

We also developed several non-chemical tactics for weed management, that include taking advantage of cultivars with superior competitive ability, a cereal rye cover crop system, and improving crop emergence with seed treatment and planting depth. Collectively, this work has removed some of the hurdles to producing the crop domestically, particularly related to weed management.

IFT: Does edamame have the potential to be a big crop in the US?

WILLIAMS: Globally, demand for edamame is on the rise. Even among US consumers, interest appears to be growing. Since the US is a leading producer of grain-type soybean, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that we can’t produce edamame domestically if we wanted to.

The US has several advantages. For instance, edamame can be harvested with the same equipment we use to harvest green beans and fresh peas, which is far more cost effective than hand harvest used in today’s leading edamame producing countries. I doubt it will be a “common” crop. It won’t take millions of acres to be a global competitor. The question is whether we want to compete or not.

IFT: How is edamame agronomy different than grain soybeans? How does that impact the crop’s potential for being a common crop in the Midwest?

WILLIAMS: While edamame is Glycine max, the cultivars are completely different from grain-type soybean. The plants have been selected to have large seed that when harvested at the full-seed stage have a sweet, nutty flavor, among other traits. I’ve done enough work in vegetable crops to know that what makes a tasty seed can make a miserable attempt to propagate a plant in the field. Therefore, agronomic practices for edamame can differ from grain-type soybean beginning with planting.

For instance, until recently most of the seeding rate recommendations for edamame were comparable to grain-type soybean. I questioned that. Edamame production is not about bushels of seed, but the amount of two- and three-seeded pods that are marketable (ie the seeds are large and fill the pods). Moreover, edamame seed is quite expensive. We conducted research to identify the economically optimal plant density of machine-harvested edamame. We found the optimal seeding rates of edamame are easily one-half the recommended seeding rates of grain-type soybean. This is just one example demonstrating the importance of using research-based information to facilitate the growth of a crop, particularly one in its infancy.

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