By Julie Ingwersen
FARGO, North Dakota, Oct 7 (Reuters) - In a small outdoor plot in Fargo, North Dakota, plant breeder Carrie Dottey crouched over a tiny flower on a leafy green soybean plant, conducting research that could help convert the state, known for its wheat, into a soybean powerhouse.
No state has increased soybean plantings faster than North Dakota, fueled by booms in Chinese demand and domestic biofuel production.
State soybean plantings have more than tripled since 2000, far outpacing
a 17% national increase, as advancements such as herbicide-resistant seeds coincided with declining demand for wheat. The northern Plains state, infamous for its brutal cold, has also grown substantially warmer.
Soybeans now usually top the list of the state's most planted and most valuable crops.
Yet the main drag on North Dakota's soy production potential has been yields, measured in bushels per acre. North Dakota soybean yields have remained flat over the last decade at around 35 bpa, well below the national average of nearly 53 bpa and below yields in neighboring South Dakota and Minnesota.
The challenge is to develop soybeans that can thrive in the state's short, often dry summers and narrow the yield gap with the Midwest.
"That's my white whale," Dottey said during a hot July afternoon as she examined white buds on plants on the campus of North Dakota State University, where she works developing new soybean varieties. "The crux of my research ambition is to figure out how can we get North Dakota yields equivalent to Illinois?"
WARMING TREND
This summer was among North Dakota's warmest and driest ever, according to state climatologist Daryl Ritchison. The US Department of Agriculture has projected North Dakota's soybean yield at 30 bushels per acre, a five-year low.
Temperatures in the state have warmed by more than 2.6 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) since 1900, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The first 20 years of the 21st century represent one of the warmest periods on record for North Dakota, the agency said in a 2022 report.
Evan Montgomery, who farms near Grand Forks, said he and his neighbors typically plant varieties optimized for a longer growing season than the ones they planted even a decade ago.
But rising temperatures could also increase the intensity of droughts, the NOAA report said. North Dakota is prone to both flooding and drought.
To address drought, Plains farmers have become adept at preserving soil moisture by disturbing the soil as little as possible. Growing up in the 1970s, John Buchholz, who farms in Durbin, on North Dakota's eastern side, said his family routinely used a moldboard plow to turn over the black soil after harvesting to control weeds.
"But we don't do that anymore. That's an absolute sin," Buchholz said. Nowadays, Buchholz leaves crop stalks in the fields after harvesting, providing a protective mulch layer that can help retain soil moisture and prevent erosion.
The development of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant crops simplified cultivation, fueling North Dakota's soy boom. Monsanto, now part of Bayer, introduced Roundup Ready soybeans in 1996, and within a few years, farmers began growing varieties adapted to North Dakota.
"Once we got Roundup Ready, and we didn't have to cultivate soybeans, that was a game-changer," said Frayne Olson, a North Dakota State University agricultural economist.
RISING DOMESTIC DEMAND
Booming Chinese demand for soybeans to feed livestock in the early 2000s and 2010s created a huge market for North Dakota's crops, most of which were loaded onto rail cars to export terminals in the Pacific Northwest.
While President Donald Trump's trade wars have sharply reduced soybean exports to China, the loss has been partially offset by surging demand for soy-based biofuels to meet increased US mandates for renewable fuels.
Two large soybean processing plants have opened in North Dakota since 2023, adding buyers for nearly half of the state's soybeans.
"The domestic demand for biodiesel and ... bioproducts is really where I think there's still some future opportunity," US Senator Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, told Reuters.
The Green Bison soy plant in Spiritwood, a joint venture between Archer-Daniels-Midland and Marathon Petroleum, and the North Dakota Soybean Processors plant in Casselton, a joint venture formed by CGB Enterprises and Minnesota Soybean Processors, can process 90 million bushels of soybeans a year combined, close to half of North Dakota's projected 2026 harvest.
Montgomery said the Casselton plant has been offering roughly 50 cents per bushel more to buy farmers' soybeans than grain elevators in his area that rely on exports.
Back in Fargo, Dottey has been harvesting soybeans that she and her team pollinated by hand last spring, systematically crossing seed lines from Illinois and Nebraska with North Dakota soybeans to see what will thrive.
Part of her research involves finding genes that could help soybeans endure dry conditions as far west as Williston, near the state's western border with Montana.
"It's in my interest to maximize yield in as short of a season as possible," Dottey said. "The growing season is short here, and it's not forgiving."
(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen. Editing by Emily Schmall and Rod Nickel)
