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Purdue Agronomy Professor Dr. Jianxin Ma has been named the first Indiana Soybean Alliance Endowed Chair in Soybean Improvement.
“I’m very excited about this opportunity, and I look forward to identifying the real-world problems that are affecting soybean production in Indiana soybean farms.”
The Indiana Soybean Alliance (ISA) established this chair to advance critical soybean research in such areas as the creation of the genome-editing pipeline and the utilization of phenotyping.
Denise Scarborough farms in LaPorte County and is the chair of the Indiana Soybean Alliance Sustainability & Value Creation Committee. As directors of Indiana’s soybean checkoff funds, she says they’re constantly talking about how to move the pile.
“We need to have the best pile to move to start out with, and that starts in the research department. And I think what Dr. Ma brings to the table, what he has brought, and what his team of researchers will bring to the table into the future, is really going to enhance the farming aspects of yields, production, and having the best quality crop that we can have not only in the United States but to show off globally.”
Dr. Jianxin Ma receives a plaque from Indiana Soybean Alliance CEO Courtney Kingery and farmer director Denise Scarborough after being named the first Indiana Soybean Alliance Endowed Chair in Soybean Improvement. Photo: Eric Pfeiffer/ Hoosier Ag Today
And Scarborough explains that Dr. Ma is the perfect choice for the position.
“Dr. Ma has definitely been in the forefront of soybean genetics, all kinds of splicing and dicing and things that are over most farmers heads when you’re talking about things when it comes to the soybean traits and the additional research. He has by far stood out and he’s stood out not only for us at ISA but also for Purdue, somebody that we would like to keep on faculty because of the research that he’s done.”
The partnership between Purdue University and the Indiana Soybean Alliance is a strong one. In addition to funding Dr. Ma’s research, ISA funds research for new soybean uses led by Dr. Nathan Mosier, the Indiana Soybean Alliance Soybean Utilization Endowed Chair.