“…Soybean is a versatile, agriculturally and industrially important legume. WL stress is critical in soybean during various stages of its development (grain-filling, emergence and germination) ( Ploschuk et al., 2022 ; Rajendran et al., 2022 , 2023 ; Ramlal et al., 2023a , 2023b , 2023c , 2024 ). Therefore, there is a crucial need for the development of novel strategies enabling the identification of superior genotypes (tolerant/susceptible) that will be helpful for sustainable crop production under different and harsh climatic conditions.…”