Seed sizes: production performance of soybean cultivars grown individually

Abstract

Soybean seed size is a factor that still requires studies, as the connection between seed size and production performance of plants in the field is controversial. Thus, the objective of the present work was to evaluate the production performance of individual soybean plants grown from seeds of different sizes. The cultivars BS-2606-SOYTECH, NS-6700-IPRO, NA-5909-RR, BS-IRGA-1642-IPRO, and LANÇA-58i60-IPRO were evaluated in two crop seasons. A randomized block experimental design was used; the treatments consisted of three seed sizes for each cultivar, with four replications. Seeds that had the highest percentage of retention in a set of sieves were used in the experiment. The following variables were evaluated at harvest: plant height, first node height, number of nodes per plant, number of stems, number of pods on the main stem, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per plant, seed weight per plant, 1000-seed weight, and percentage of seeds retained on the sieves. Soybean seeds of the cultivars BS-2606-SOYTECH, NS-6700-IPRO, NA-5909-RR, BS-IRGA-1642-IPRO, and LANÇA-58i60-IPRO from sieves S1, S2, and S3 did not result in plants with different agronomic performance. Seeds of the cultivars BS-2606-SOYTECH, NS-6700-IPRO, and NA-5909-RR BMX from sieves S1, S2, and S3 exhibited higher yields for the 6.5-mm sieve in both crop seasons. The cultivar BS-IRGA-1642-IPRO produced the highest percentage of seeds with a diameter of 7.0 mm in both crop seasons, regardless of seed size.