Dr. Carrie Miranda, postdoctoral researcher with USDA-ARS, describes herself as a NextGen breeder dedicated to strengthening domestic and global food security by using bioinformatic tools to discover new genes for useful traits that are then incorporated into new soybean lines. While a PhD student with the University of Missouri’s Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics program, Carrie worked with SIL researcher Dr. Kristin Bilyeu on low-latitude soybean adaptation. She spent two growing seasons testing experimental soybean lines throughout northern Ghana funded through SIL and a Borlaug Graduate Research Grant Fellowship. As a postdoctoral researcher, her work on soybean adaptation with SIL continues. 

In the recently published study, The effects and interaction of soybean maturity gene alleles controlling flowering time, maturity, and adaptation in tropical environments, Dr. Miranda, along with the Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab researchers Andrew Scaboo, Nicholas Denwar & Kristin Bilyeu, found that understanding the genetic mechanisms behind agronomic traits such as days to flower and days to maturity will allow soybean breeders to optimize the varieties they release. This could be key to maximizing soybean yields in tropical environments such as Sub-Saharan Africa.

The effects and interaction of soybean maturity gene alleles controlling flowering time, maturity, and adaptation in tropical environments was published in BMC Plant Biology on February 7, 2020.  You can read the full article here.