Gathering together great soybean minds that include professors, undergrads, growers and industry representatives, North Dakota State University (NDSU) hosted its annual Soybean Symposium on March 5 on campus at the Memorial Union in Fargo, N.D.  

The symposium features topics covering agronomy, breeding and new uses research, strategically connecting opportunities for exchanging ideas and networking among many of the top researchers in the soybean industry.  

“The Soybean Symposium is an initiative that started six years ago and has been growing enormously, but basically it’s just the idea of getting together all the people who work in soybeans to network and connect,” said Ana Carcedo, NDSU broadleaf agronomist. “It’s amazing how many incredible things can come up when you have the time to talk to others who work in the same field. We’re all a big soybean family.” 

Along with keynote speakers and research presentations, the symposium offers the opportunity for graduate students to present their soybean-related research and compete for a cash prize. The students compete via a poster presentation or with a two-minute, lightning round oral presentation giving a summary of their research. Thanks to travel scholarships, competitions were able to expand to students beyond NDSU this year, including the University of Minnesota, Southwest Minnesota State University and South Dakota State University.  

The Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council and the soy checkoff provided four scholarships to students enrolled in Minnesota schools, including Joseph Halbur, a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota studying swine nutrition. Halbur showcased his research on evaluating high and low soybean meal inclusion rates in swine diets.  

“With soybean crush expanding and potentially a surplus of soybean meal, we wanted to test inclusion levels of soybean meal in swine and particularly the performance level of a high soybean meal level of 50%,” said Halbur, who conducted his initial research at SDSU. “At the end of it we found no differences as far as performance and carcass characteristics in the two diets, but we would need some changes in the market for it to be economically feasible.” 

Halbur had heard about the Soybean Symposium from an adviser. With his background in animal science, rather than production agriculture, he was hesitant at first about attending, but is glad he reconsidered.  

“I probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for MSR&PC and the travel grant, so I’m very appreciative of that,” Halbur said. “Coming from an animal science background and knowing how in-depth that field is, it was interesting to see how in-depth the soybean production world was as well.” 

Sharing information  

The keynote presenters at this year’s symposium followed a theme of “Communication in Science” and shared the importance of being able to effectively communicate their cutting-edge research with stakeholders. Keynotes included Shawn Conley from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Ignacio Ciampitti from Purdue University and Dylan Mangel from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, all of which have a background in Extension and are known for their unique ability of communicating to producers.  

“I think it’s really important that the science doesn’t just stay in a publication, but really it needs to reach the farmers who will actually use that information,” Carcedo said. “So, with that in mind, we wanted to bring that message and those tools to the graduate students to let them know how to do that.” 

All three of the keynote presenters had their own unique way of storytelling and shared the importance of knowing your audience and meeting them where they are when communicating research.  

“Storytelling is important,” Ciampitti said. “I always say to my students that the paper is not the end of the story, it’s the beginning, and you need to understand how you will finish it with the communication of that research.”