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1. Techno-Economic Evaluation of Phosphorous Recovery in Soybean Biodiesel Process

   https://doi.org/10.3390/pr10081512  

   Juneja, Ankita; Kurambhatti, Chinmay; Kumar, Deepak; Singh, Vijay (August 2022, Processes)

   The over-enrichment of phosphorus in waste streams can lead to eutrophication and oxygen limitations for aquatic life. To understand the release of phosphorus from a soybean processing facility, it is imperative to track the flow of phosphorus in different streams during the processing of soybeans. The objective of the study is to develop process simulation models to study the flow of phosphorus in the soy-biodiesel process and evaluate strategies to mitigate phosphorus release by recovering phosphorous from soapstock and wastewater. Since most of the P is found in soybean meal, the processing of which releases phosphorus, a third case of lecithin recovery was also studied to reduce the amount of phosphorous in soybean meal. It was observed that phosphorus can be economically recovered from the soapstock, as well as the wastewater stream, with an estimated operating cost of USD 1.65 and 3.62 per kg of phosphorous recovered, respectively. The phosphorus recovered from both streams can be potentially applied as fertilizer to more than 13,000 acres of corn or 96,000 acres of soybean, respectively. The lecithin recovery case was found to have the highest revenue, and it led to a 54% reduction in phosphorous during soybean meal processing. 

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2. Genomic and phenomic prediction for soybean seed yield, protein, and oil

   https://doi.org/10.1002/tpg2.70002  

   Van_der_Laan, Liza; Parmley, Kyle; Saadati, Mojdeh; Pacin, Hernan_Torres; Panthulugiri, Srikanth; Sarkar, Soumik; Ganapathysubramanian, Baskar; Lorenz, Aaron; Singh, Asheesh_K (February 2025, The Plant Genome)

   Abstract Developments in genomics and phenomics have provided valuable tools for use in cultivar development. Genomic prediction (GP) has been used in commercial soybean [Glycine maxL. (Merr.)] breeding programs to predict grain yield and seed composition traits. Phenomic prediction (PP) is a rapidly developing field that holds the potential to be used for the selection of genotypes early in the growing season. The objectives of this study were to compare the performance of GP and PP for predicting soybean seed yield, protein, and oil. We additionally conducted genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) to identify significant single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with the traits of interest. The GWAS panel of 292 diverse accessions was grown in six environments in replicated trials. Spectral data were collected at two time points during the growing season. A genomic best linear unbiased prediction (GBLUP) model was trained on 269 accessions, while three separate machine learning (ML) models were trained on vegetation indices (VIs) and canopy traits. We observed that PP had a higher correlation coefficient than GP for seed yield, while GP had higher correlation coefficients for seed protein and oil contents. VIs with high feature importance were used as covariates in a new GBLUP model, and a new random forest model was trained with the inclusion of selected SNPs. These models did not outperform the original GP and PP models. These results show the capability of using ML for in‐season predictions for specific traits in soybean breeding and provide insights on PP and GP inclusions in breeding programs. 

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3. Cryptic isoprene emission of soybeans

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2502360122  

   Mostofa, Mohammad Golam; Sahu, Abira; Xu, Yuan; Basrai, Insiya; Doron, Lior; Lefrancois, Violet; Sharkey, Thomas D (June 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Isoprene is the most abundant nonmethane biogenic hydrocarbon emitted by some plants, mostly trees. It plays critical roles in atmospheric chemistry by contributing to ozone and aerosol formation. Isoprene also benefits plants, particularly under stress, through its signaling roles. Legume crops like soybean were thought to have evolutionarily lost isoprene synthase (ISPS) and are typically considered nonemitters. Here, we report that damage to soybean leaves by wounding or burning triggered a burst of isoprene emission from the undamaged part of the leaves. In silico analysis identified intactISPSgenes in the soybean genome, with features similar to known ISPSs. Protein made from these gene sequences catalyzed isoprene production in the presence of dimethylallyl diphosphate. Isoprene emission in soybeans was linked to reduced photosynthesis rates and stomatal conductance. Metabolomic analysis showed that leaf damage caused a surge in glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate and pyruvate levels, leading to an increase of most of the methylerythritol 4-phosphate pathway metabolites. 

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4. Phosphorus flow in production of soy protein concentrate and isolate from defatted soybean flour

   https://doi.org/10.1002/aocs.12726  

   Singh, Shuchi; Singh, Vijay (July 2023, Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society)

   Abstract Implications of excess phosphorus (P) in waste streams obtained from soy‐based protein preparation processes on the environment and their potential utilization as P‐source are two significant understudied areas. Soybean‐based protein ingredients for food products retain comparatively enhanced functional properties and are cheaper than other plant‐based proteins. Soybean protein can be extracted and utilized as a food ingredient primarily by preparing soy protein concentrates (SPC) and soy protein isolates (SPI) from soybean meal/defatted soy flour (DSF). In a typical soybean processing facility, along with the soy products and soy‐protein preparations, the recovery of phosphorus as a coproduct will enhance the economic feasibility of the overall process as the recovered P can be used as fertilizer. In this study, the SPC and SPI were prepared from the DSF following widely used conventional protocols and P flow in these processes was tracked. In SPC production, ~59% of the total P was retained with SPC and ~34% was in the aqueous waste streams. For SPI process ~24% of total P was retained with SPI and ~59% went in the waste solid residue (~40%) and aqueous streams (~19%). About 80%–89% P removal from the waste aqueous streams was achieved by Ca‐phytate precipitation. This work demonstrated that in the process of SPC and SPI preparation the phosphorus from the waste aqueous streams can be precipitated out to avoid subsequent eutrophication and the waste solid residue with ~40% P can be reused as a P‐fertilizer as other applications of this residue are unspecified. 

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5. Suppression of SDP1 Improves Soybean Seed Composition by Increasing Oil and Reducing Undigestible Oligosaccharides

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.863254  

   Aznar-Moreno, Jose A.; Mukherjee, Thiya; Morley, Stewart A.; Duressa, Dechassa; Kambhampati, Shrikaar; Chu, Kevin L.; Koley, Somnath; Allen, Doug K.; Durrett, Timothy P. (March 2022, Frontiers in Plant Science)

   In developing soybean seeds, carbon is partitioned between oil, protein and carbohydrates. Here, we demonstrate that suppression of lipase-mediated turnover of triacylglycerols (TAG) during late seed development increases fatty acid content and decreases the presence of undigestible oligosaccharides. During late stages of embryo development, the fatty acid content of soybean seed decreases while the levels of the oligosaccharides raffinose and stachyose increase. Three soybean genes orthologous to the Arabidopsis lipase gene SUGAR-DEPENDENT1 ( SDP1 ) are upregulated at this time. Suppression of these genes resulted in higher oil levels, with lipid levels in the best lines exceeding 24% of seed weight. In addition, lipase-suppressed lines produced larger seeds compared to wild-type plants, resulting in increases of over 20% in total lipid per seed. Levels of raffinose and stachyose were lower in the transgenic lines, with average reductions of 15% in total raffinose family oligosaccharides observed. Despite the increase in oil, protein content was not negatively impacted and trended higher in the transgenic lines. These results are consistent with a role for SDP1 in turning over TAG to supply carbon for other needs, including the synthesis of oligosaccharides, and offer new strategies to further improve the composition of soybean seeds. 

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