Soybean: Breeding for Organic Farming Systems

Comparative assessment of early season soybean cultivars in organic and conventional production system for morphological and agronomic traits

“…Nutrient use efficiency was introduced by Van Bueren et al (2011), is described as both the efficacy of the root system to acquire nutrients and remobilize them into yield as being vital traits to focus upon for organic cultivars. The high association between AUCPC and yield was expected in the organic compared with the conventional breeding sites (Crespo-Herrera & Ortiz, 2015;Place et al, 2011aPlace et al, , 2011bvan Bueren & Myers, 2012;Van Bueren et al, 2011;Vollmann & Menken, 2011). Extensive amounts of research and development have been invested into developing modern plant cultivars to ensure that they are able to remobilize nutrients and senescence in response to day length with impeccable timing (Lied et al, 2011).…”

“…Food grade soybeans, as the soybean cultivars that are mainly used for food rather than feed, hold a smaller portion of the total world production, most of which is dedicated to crushing for oil extraction (Vollmann & Rajcan, 2009; Yoosefzadeh‐Najafabadi et al., 2021a). Most organic soybeans grown worldwide are intended for the specialty food‐grade market (Vollmann & Menken, 2011). When defining an organic soybean ideotype, quality traits such as improved nutrient use efficiency and nutrient acquisition, the ability to suppress and compete with weeds, enhanced nitrogen fixation, adequate seed components and quality parameters for food‐grade use and maintaining high yield under stresses would be of interest to soybean breeders (Tonin et al., 2018).…”

Plant Breeding: Past, Present and Future

“…In contrast, there is little evidence for a photoperiod effect on carrot root production and flowering, but adaptation to a wide range of production temperatures is an issue (Simon et al 2008). This view is supported by studies of long-term trends in North American soybean breeding where progress for higher yield was frequently associated with reduced protein content, whereas protein content of Chinese cultivars remained constant (Vollman and Menken 2012). Successful general purpose cultivars can be found, but one would expect different barley cultivars for use as animal feed and for malting, and different potato cultivars for cooking as a vegetable (baking and boiling) and processing into products (French fries and crisps).…”

“…Likewise, if a crop is daylength dependent per se, cultivars adapted to a certain latitude cannot be grown commercially in other latitudes, a good example being onions (Shigyo and Kik 2008). Another example comes from soybean, where processors generally consider that Chinese and Japanese soybeans are better suited for production of traditional foods because they are higher in protein, whereas North American soybeans appear more suitable for oil extraction (Vollman and Menken 2012). Climate will determine whether to breed cultivars of many crops for winter (autumn) or spring sowing.…”

Weed tolerance in soybean: a direct selection system

“…Suppression may provide longer‐term weed control by reducing seed banks, but weed‐suppressive traits such as rapid early growth and large leaf area could represent a trade‐off with yield or other desirable characteristics like lodging resistance. Tolerance may be more important where weather conditions restrict early tillage (Vollmann and Menken ). Thus, both suppression and tolerance are of interest for breeding soybean genotypes with high yields under weed pressure.…”