Soybean is the second most economically important row crop species in the United States, but very little information is available on the specific genes that regulate soybean defenses. The soybean crop is perennially subjected to attack by a variety of pathogens, and the average estimated annual soybean yield loss due to disease in the United States is over 400 million bushels. Knowledge of defense-related genes in model plants combined with the genome sequence information available to soybean provides the opportunity to define the networks of genes that control the defenses of soybean plants in response to a variety of important pathogens.