Ecological Characteristics and Yield of Major Soybean Cultivars at Different Sowing Times in Southern Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of shifts in sowing time on the ecological responses, growth and yields of major soybean cultivars in a southern region of South Korea. Experiments were carried out in Naju, Jeonnam Province (latitude 35° 04'N, longitude 126° 54'E) for three years from 2008 to 2010. The test cultivars included Saeol-kong and Tawon-kong of the summer type, Taekwangkong and Pungsannamul-kong, and Cheongja3 of the autumn type. Sowing took place on May 15 and 30, June 15 and 30, and July 15 of each year. Of the summer type soybean cultivars, Saeol-kong showed a smaller curtailment in days from sowing to flowering, days from flowering to maturity, and days from sowing to maturity according to sowing time postponement than Tawon-kong. Of the autumn type soybean cultivars, Taekwang-kong exhibited a lower photoperiodic response in reproductive growth period than Pungsannamul-kong and Cheongja3, both of which recorded higher level photoperiodic responses in vegetative growth stages and reproductive growth periods than other test cultivars, with the former exhibiting higher levels than the latter. Most of the test cultivars tended to decrease in stem length, node numbers of the main stem, and stem diameter according to postponed sowing time, but there were no significant differences in stem length and node numbers of the main stem of the Saeol-kong cultivar. Differences in sowing times did not affect the first setting pod node order of Saeol-kong and Tawon-kong summer type cultivars of internode lengths of all of the test cultivars. All of the test cultivars tended to show decreases in pod number per plant due to postponement of sowing time except for the Saeol-kong cultivar. The variation was more prominent in small grain cultivars such as Tawon-kong and Pungsannamul-kong with the latter autumn type cultivar showing especially large variation. Yields were the greatest for the Tawon-kong, Taekwang-kong, and Pungsannamul-kong cultivars sown on May 30 and Cheongja3 sown on May 30 and June 15. There were no significant differences in the yields of Saeol-kong for different sowing times from May 30 to July 15, with the yields lowest for the batch sown on May 15.

Growth and yield responses of soybean according to subsurface fertigation

“…Thus, although HSW is one of the yield components that have a significant impact on yield, it was assumed that increasing fertilizer concentration would not increase HSW because it is a cultivar characteristic. Although the NP or the NSP increased with the fertigation concentration, the HSW did not appear to increase with the fertigation concentration, as the Saeol cultivar showed a characteristic 28.9 g HSW (Kim et al., 2013).…”