The oil accumulation in the developing soybean seed has been shown to be a dynamic process with different rates and activities at different phases affected by both genotype and environment. The objective of the present study was to investigate additive, epistatic and quantitative trait loci (QTL) 9 environment interaction (QE) effects of the QTL controlling oil filling rate in soybean seed. A total of 143 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from the cross of Charleston and Dongnong 594 were used in this study to obtain 2 years of field data (2004 and 2005). A total of 26 QTL with significantly unconditional and conditional additive (a) effect and/ or additive 9 environment interaction (ae) effect at different filling stages were identified on 14 linkage groups. Among the QTL with significant a effects, 18 QTL showed positive effects and 6 QTL had negative effects on seed filling rate of oil content during seed development. A total of 29 epistatic pairwise QTL underlying seed filling rate were identified at different filling stages. About 28 pairs of the QTL showed additive 9 additive epistatic (aa) effects and 14 pairs of the QTL showed aa 9 environment interaction (aae) effects at different filling stages. QTL with aa and aae (additive 9 additive 9 environment) effects appeared to vary at different filling stages. Our results demonstrated that oil filling rate in soybean seed were under genetic, developmental and environmental control.Keywords Oil filling rate Á Additive 9 additive epistatic (aa) effect Á Aa 9 environment interaction (aae) Á Soybean

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