Dr. William Schapaugh honored for 47 years

Kansas State University’s first soybean breeder retires after decades of public service in research.

Nearly 50 years ago, Dr. William Schapaugh accepted a job as Kansas State University’s first soybean breeder. He has long partnered with the Kansas Soybean Commission, carrying out decades of checkoff-funded research to drive progress in soybean genetics. At the annual Kansas Soybean Celebration, KSC presented Schapaugh with the Pinnacle Award, the organization’s highest honor, given in recognition of a career dedicated to the soybean farmers of Kansas.

“I just loved to work on soybeans,” Schapaugh says, describing the beginning of his career in 1979. “Soybean farming in Kansas was growing exponentially. The soybean commission was just getting organized at that time. They felt like there was just tremendous potential, and they were right.”

Much was different then. Schapaugh says he analyzed his master’s degree data on a desktop calculator, and his Ph.D. data on Purdue University’s only computer, a mainframe that students had to stand in line to use. In his early days at K-State, everything was done by hand. They could only grow one population per year, and selection was done visually and by yield.

Now, he says, they use better equipment and collect more data. They use drones to measure plant development and stress, and molecular markers to track genes. They can grow multiple generations each year, using winter nurseries to speed progress.

“Over time, the core goal has not changed: to develop soybean varieties and germplasm that perform well in production or are useful for breeding and research,” Schapaugh says. “But almost everything about how we do that has changed.”

Schapaugh is proud of the scientific progress his team has contributed to, and of the release of improved public soybean varieties, which are adopted directly by farmers or used by other breeders and researchers to support further progress. Yet, even more important than those, Schapaugh says, is people.

“I’m proud of the students, faculty and staff at K-State, and the collaborators around the country who have contributed to the program and gone on to do important work themselves,” Schapaugh says. “Building capacity in plant breeding and agriculture is just as important as a variety release.”

Also important is what he calls public soybean breeders’ long-term commitment to work together. Over the years, varieties developed by his team have been evaluated by researchers in other states, and vice versa.

“I’m proud of that collaborative effort,” Schapaugh says. “I’m proud of how the community of soybean breeders and soybean researchers work together in this country.”

Schapaugh has spent his career in a publicly funded soybean breeding program, which plays a different role than private research. Public programs focus more on regional adaptation, long-term needs and traits that may not be immediately profitable but are agronomically or socially important.

“For farmers, that means continued innovation in areas that might otherwise be neglected,” Schapaugh says. “Over time, that directly affects the farmer’s bottom line through yield stability, risk reduction, and choice.”

Amidst constant change, Schapaugh believes the importance of public breeding will only increase, because as systems become more complex, private breeding is growing more specialized.

“Someone still must focus on broad adaptation, resilience, and the public good,” he says. “That means enhancing genetic diversity, serving diverse production environments, and investing in traits whose value may only become clear over time.”

As much as Schapaugh expects future change, the principle that all his years of work have revolved around never will: yield pays.

“The primary focus was always yield,” Schapaugh says. “But that said, there’s a lot that goes into yield.”

When he started out, the big yield killer was Phytophthora root rot. After about ten years, he says, breeders got a good handle on it, but new diseases continued to appear that no one had dealt with before. Now, the focus is on soybean cyst nematode and sudden death syndrome, as well as heat and drought tolerance, for which they’ve been working to improve resilience for more than 10 years.

In the future, Schapaugh expects to see soybean breeding become more predictive, and to better integrate environmental data, in order to address specific stress patterns rather than average performance. The outcome of this work is something he cares deeply about, demonstrated by the 47 years he dedicated to improving farmers’ bottom lines. “Plant breeding is a long-term investment,” he says. “Decisions made today affect what farmers can plant a decade from now. That requires patience, consistency and a public commitment to agriculture. I think that’s just as important today as it was when I started.”