Six Decades of Soybean Breeding in Ontario, Canada: A Tradition of Innovation

Soybean has been widely grown by Canadian farmers for more than 80 years, especially in Southern Ontario. In recent decades, the Canadian growing region has and expandingexpanded east and north Canada in recent decades. An average of 1% soybean yield improvement is achieved annually, thanks to efforts by public and private soybean breeding programs. However, in order to meet future food demands, an average 2.4% annual increase in soybean yield is required annually. As sSoybean breeders are mostly dealing with complex traits that are under control by several intrinsic and extrinsic factors, it is necessary to haveso sufficient information about the past and current breeding efforts is required to modify the future breeding programs accordingly. Here, we focused onreview public soybean breeding efforts that have been made inover the past 25 years in Southern Ontario, as one of the most productive regions for Canadian soybean growers. Furthermore, we explain how the recent advances could facilitate the soybean breeding programs by reducing the time and cost and increasing selection accuracy in a large breeding population. Finally, we summarize future directions in three important sections, i.e., multi-omics, environmental, and data-driven approaches, and provide a view vision for future soybean breeding programs.