Evaluating the Effectiveness of Calcium Silicate in Enhancing Soybean Growth and Yield

Abstract

The application of silicon (Si) fertilizer positively impacts crop health, yield, and seed quality worldwide. Si is a “quasi-essential” element that is crucial for plant nutrition and stress response but is less associated with growth. This study aimed to investigate the effect of Si on the yield of cultivated soybean (Glycine max L). Two locations, Gyeongsan and Gunwi, in the Republic of Korea were selected, and a land suitability analysis was performed using QGIS version 3.28.1. The experiments at both locations consisted of three treatments: the control, Si fertilizer application at 2.3 kg per plot (9 m × 9 m) (T1), and Si fertilizer application at 4.6 kg per plot (9 m × 9 m) (T2). The agronomic, root, and yield traits, as well as vegetative indices, were analyzed to evaluate the overall impact of Si. The results demonstrated that Si had consistently significant effects on most root and shoot parameters in the two experimental fields, which led to significantly increased crop yield when compared with the control, with T2 (22.8% and 25.6%, representing an output of 2.19 and 2.24 t ha−1 at Gyeongsan and Gunwi, respectively) showing a higher yield than T1 (11% and 14.2%, representing 1.98 and 2.04 t ha−1 at Gyeongsan and Gunwi, respectively). These results demonstrate the positive impact of exogenous Si application on the overall growth, morphological and physiological traits, and yield output of soybeans. However, the application of the optimal concentration of Si according to the crop requirement, soil status, and environmental conditions requires further studies.

Exploring the Root Morphological Traits of Diverse-Origin Cultivated Soybean

“…TRL demonstrated a negative association with AD while, conversely, positive associations with RV, NT, NF, and TTL (Figure 3). This pattern of association can be attributed to the inverse relationship between root length and thickness, as reported in previous studies [35,36]. Furthermore, thinner roots typically exhibit a higher fibrous nature and a greater propensity for branching than thicker roots [37,38].…”

“…A longer TRL and other improved RMTs serve as positive indicators for a plant's tolerance to abiotic stresses, overall crop growth, and yield output [36]. Improved RMTs enable plants to cover more soil layers and access more nutrient hotspots and water profiles [37,40,41,[43][44][45][46][47].…”

Molecular, genetic, and genomic basis of seed size and yield characteristics in soybean

“…It was found that bigger seeds didn’t make the yield better; in fact, they sometimes made the yield lower compared to smaller seeds, especially in good growing conditions. Similarly, another study reported a negative correlation of HSW ( r = -0.05) with yield while a significant positive correlation of pod number ( r = 0.44), and total grain number ( r = 0.44) was noticed with the yield output ( Attipoe et al., 2023 ) while contrastingly, some studies have revealed different results. A study conducted to check the effect of SS on crop yield, including others, has revealed a positive impact, where larger seeds produced an increase of 5.4% on average from the small seeds genotypes in 10 experiments ( Smith and Camper, 1975 ), furthermore, a separated study also revealed high crop yield for the accessions having larger SS comparatively to the smaller genotypes ( Adebisi et al., 2013 ), adding more, another study conducted revealed NPP, total number of seeds, and HSW showed a positive correlation of ( r = 0.92), ( r = 0.93), and ( r = 0.063) with yield, respectively ( Vu et al., 2019 ).…”

“…A study conducted to check the effect of SS on crop yield, including others, has revealed a positive impact, where larger seeds produced an increase of 5.4% on average from the small seeds genotypes in 10 experiments ( Smith and Camper, 1975 ), furthermore, a separated study also revealed high crop yield for the accessions having larger SS comparatively to the smaller genotypes ( Adebisi et al., 2013 ), adding more, another study conducted revealed NPP, total number of seeds, and HSW showed a positive correlation of ( r = 0.92), ( r = 0.93), and ( r = 0.063) with yield, respectively ( Vu et al., 2019 ). Analyzing the mentioned studies, it can be concluded that the most important and defining traits contributing to crop yield directly are the pods number and number of seeds, revealing the biggest correlation with the yield in every study conducted ( Adebisi et al., 2013 ; Attipoe et al., 2023 ). However, relying solely on simple correlation to establish the causal relationship between yield components and yield might not accurately capture the intricate cause-and-effect dynamics, thus leading to potential inefficiencies in the selection strategy.…”

Automatic Evaluation of Soybean Seed Traits Using RGB Image Data and a Python Algorithm

“…Apart from seed size, seed number is another important agronomic parameter used for estimating the grain weight and yield and has an essential role in soybean breeding [8]. The total number of seeds per plant, total seeds per selected area, and seeds per pod are the main traits used for estimating the yield of soybean [9].…”