the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, Caio Canella Vieira came across the name Pengyin Chen quite often during his studies. Chen be- came a major source of inspiration for Canella Vieira – and someone who he


referenced


throughout his under- graduate work.


Following In His Footsteps A


s an undergraduate student


PORTAGEVILLE, MO. studying


soybean breeding at


with him. It’s just in- credible.” Chen joined the Uni-


versity of Missouri Col- lege of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources (CAFNR) four years ago, taking the David M. Haggard Endowed Pro- fessorship of Soybean Breeding position. The professorship is in the Division of Plant Sciences – and Chen is located at


the Fisher


Caio Canella Vieira is working with Pengyin Chen, who has served as a source of inspiration for Canella Vieira.


in science and has a broad interest, but a goal to be a successful breeder. He has helped us improve organization, logistics, accuracy and overall efficiency of our breeding program. He is very much engaged in broad collaboration with the research community and actively involved in


troduced him to the world of plant sciences. Canella Vieira was hooked. “My brother was work-


ing on a plant science degree in Brazil and re- ally broke down every- thing you could do with that degree,” Canella Vieira said. “There was also an enormous ge-


Program gives you so much


exposure,”


Canella Vieira said. “It also opens you up to the many careers that you can pursue. I’m incredi- ble lucky to have a men- tor on the industry side and the academic side. Getting that guidance and direction from both is so, so valuable.” C a n e l l a


Caio Canella Vieira (right) is pictured here with Donn Cummings, former chair of the NAPB Borlaug Program, during the NAPB awards ceremony


last year, where Canella Vieira received the Borlaug scholar- ship and first place in the research competition. Photo courtesy of Caio Canella Vieira


Vieira’s master’s degree work at MU focused on soybean resist- ance to south- ern root-knot n ema t o d e s . Canella Vieira, who earned his master’s degree in plant, insect and microbial science


this


spring, said the primary goal of the


research Pengyin Chen


was to test the soybean lines marked as nem- atode-resistant. “This nema-


tode is a very big disease for the southern United States,” Canella


netic program re- lated to soybeans in Brazil where they were changing the soybeans


adapted to the trop- ical


climate


to be of


Brazil. I was fasci- nated by the idea that


change a plant and make


you could it better


through genetics – and that change could help people and make huge im- pacts. I knew right away that I wanted to work in that field.”


Little did Canella Vieira


know that he would soon be working with the man he had read so much about. “My experience was


like that of a little kid who looks up to a super- star athlete, and you want to be just like that athlete,” Canella Vieira said. “Reading about his research was so inspir- ing as an undergraduate student. If you wanted to know what soybean breeding is all about – he’s the man. “Now,


just imagine


that the kid who looks up to the superstar ath- lete has the opportunity to train with that ath- lete. That’s been my ex- perience with Dr. Chen. He’s the person who I’ve looked up to for years, and I’m now working


Delta Research Center in Portageville, Mo. Be- fore coming to MU, Chen led the soybean breeding efforts at the University of Arkansas. Canella Vieira came to


the United States in 2014 after finishing the first two years of his un- dergraduate studies in Brazil. A year at the Uni- versity of Minnesota led Canella Vieira to Purdue University, where he first met Chen at a con- ference. The two had a great discussion and Chen


encouraged


Canella Vieira to do his master’s degree work at MU – with Chen. “Caio is an excellent


student with strong background in agricul- ture,


genetics and


biotechnology,” Chen said. “He is well trained


many research projects. In fact, he serves as a PI on one of the regional re- search projects funded by the Mid-South Soy- bean Board. He has pre- sented his research at several


professional


meetings, served as co- author on several publi- cations


from our


research group, and won several awards. He is very bright, hard work- ing and productive. He has tremendous poten- tial as a young scientist and will be very success- ful in his career.”


Canella Vieira’s inter-


est in soybean breeding started when he was in high school. While he first wanted to follow in his parents’ footsteps as an engineer, Canella Vieira’s older brother in-


Canella Vieira’s pas-


sion for soybean breed- ing only strengthened while working with Chen – and it grew even more when he was named a National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) Borlaug Scholar


in


2019. That program supports future leaders by pairing them with a mentor, who is a mem- ber of the NAPB and fo- cused on helping with the student’s success. Canella Vieira’s mentor is Johannes D. (J.D.) Rossouw, head of veg- etables research and de- velopment with Bayer Crop Science. Rossouw was the head of plant breeding with Bayer Crop Science for two years before moving into his new role in July. “The Borlaug Scholars


Vieira said. “The types of soils we have down here makes the nematode much more effective in what it does. With all of the technology changes over the years, my work focused on seeing how the resistant lines did under real field condi- tions to assess nema- tode pressure.” Canella Vieira said a


lot of the previous re- search done with south- ern root-knot nematode was conducted in green- houses because re- searchers have more control in those environ- ments. “We wanted to see if


the resistance actually worked in a setting that a farmer would have out in the field,” Canella Vieira said. “There is a major difference be- tween a soybean plant in a greenhouse and a soy- bean plant out in the field. We wanted to showcase what a farmer would actually see.” Canella Vieira said he


collected around 4,000 samples of soil from his field plots throughout the duration of the proj- ect to see what the nem- atode concentration was like. He found that there was definite nematode pressure


in certain


areas – and that yield suffered with suscepti- ble varieties of soybeans.


n’t lose yield when grow- ing


“We found that we did- the


resistant


varieties, so there’s re- ally no reason to not grow them,” Canella Vieira said. Canella Vieira also


studied resistant soy- beans at a molecular level. He sequenced all of the lines so that they could figure out the ge- netic information of each line. “Using the data from


the field, we were able to detect new genes that are regulating resist- ance,” Canella Vieira said. Canella Vieira was


hired as a soybean breeding research spe- cialist at Fisher Delta in April, and is now work- ing toward his PhD in plant, insect and micro- bial science. Canella Vieira is still researching southern root-knot nem- atode and is also work- ing on a project related to off-target damage of dicamba and the appli- cations of statistics and molecular genetics to improve efficiency and accuracy in the breeding program. “I’m working on incor-


porating as much ge- netic information and field data to better un- derstand the impact of off-target dicamba dam- age on a wide variety of soybean


genotypes,”


Canella Vieira said. “We’re also using drones to precisely phenotype our lines and detect variations our eyes are not capable of. We’re trying to make the breeding process as an- alytical as possible by collecting molecular and field data. We want to make the advancement and development of soy- bean varieties as data- driven as possible.”


Canella Vieira said he


is enjoying the opportu- nity to see the various career paths in his fu- ture. He’s still working through what will be the best fit.


“I had been leaning to-


ward industry and work- ing in a plant breeding position for a big corpo- ration,” Canella Vieira said. “But the more I work on the academic side and get involved in writing grants and pub- lishing my research, the more I appreciate a fu- ture faculty position. While I haven’t decided yet, I’m excited for the possibilities.”


∆ November 20, 2020 www.mafg.net / MidAmerica Farmer Grower • 11


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