Responses of Branch Number and Yield Component of Soybean Cultivars Tested in Different Planting Densities

Cailong Xu, Ruidong Li, Wenwen Song, Tingting Wu, Shi Sun, Shuixiu Hu, Tianfu Han and Cunxiang Wu
Additional contact information
Cailong Xu: Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/National Soybean Industrial Technology R & D Center, Beijing 100081, China
Ruidong Li: Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/National Soybean Industrial Technology R & D Center, Beijing 100081, China
Wenwen Song: Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/National Soybean Industrial Technology R & D Center, Beijing 100081, China
Tingting Wu: Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/National Soybean Industrial Technology R & D Center, Beijing 100081, China
Shi Sun: Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/National Soybean Industrial Technology R & D Center, Beijing 100081, China
Shuixiu Hu: School of Agronomy, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, China
Tianfu Han: Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/National Soybean Industrial Technology R & D Center, Beijing 100081, China
Cunxiang Wu: Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/National Soybean Industrial Technology R & D Center, Beijing 100081, China

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Increasing planting density is one of the key management practices to enhance soybean yield. A 2-yr field experiment was conducted in 2018 and 2019 including six planting densities and two soybean cultivars to determine the effects of planting density on branch number and yield, and analyze the contribution of branches to yield. The yield of ZZXA12938 was 4389 kg ha −1 , which was significantly higher than that of ZH13 (+22.4%). In combination with planting year and cultivar, the soybean yield increased significantly by 16.2%, 31.4%, 41.4%, and 46.7% for every increase in density of 45,000 plants ha −1 . Yield will not increase when planting density exceeds 315,000 plants ha −1 . A correlation analysis showed that pod number per plant increased with the increased branch number, while pod number per unit area decreased; thus, soybean yield decreased. With the increase of branch number, the branch contribution to yield increased first, and then plateaued. ZH13 could produce a high yield under a lower planting density due to more branches, while ZZXA12938 had a higher yield potential under a higher planting density due to the smaller branch number and higher tolerance to close planting. Therefore, seed yield can be increased by selecting cultivars with a little branching capacity under moderately close planting.

Keywords: soybean; planting density; branch; seed yield (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/1/69/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/1/69/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:11:y:2021:i:1:p:69-:d:481290

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().