Citizen science meets biodiversity: Improving soy product quality and environmental stability while enhancing biodiversity

Protein crops are essential for a modern and sustainable agriculture, which has to cope with the transition to a bioeconomy and the consequences of climate change and declining biodiversity. We therefore envisage a new cropping system in which flowering plants grow between soybean rows, increasing biodiversity without having a major negative impact on soybean yield or quality. To this end, we will test several flowering plants for their suitability and impact on the soil microbiome. In addition, the new citizen science project will test soybean lines with good tofu properties on both a control and selected flowering plants. This will be complemented by multi-site field trials to evaluate the new cropping system and investigate the genotype-by-environment interaction of agronomic traits, tofu traits and omics predictors. In addition, QTL mapping will be carried out to investigate the genetic architecture of the tofu traits. The industry partner Taifun will focus on optimising tofu production for further processing into tofu-based products. Overall, the project will support the establishment and optimisation of tofu products and is an important first step in investigating the genetic aspects of a new farming system that has the potential to increase biodiversity in our agricultural systems for greater consumer acceptance and a sustainable bio-economy.