Influence of artificially restricted rooting depth on soybean yield and seed quality

Shardendu K. Singh, Valerio Hoyos-Villegas, James H. Houx and Felix B. Fritschi

Agricultural Water Management, 2012, vol. 105, issue C, 38-47

Abstract: The amount of plant available soil water is strongly influenced by soil type and rooting depth. This study was conducted to investigate the influence of limited plant available soil water on soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) yield and seed composition. Six soybean cultivars were grown in 2007, 2008, and 2009 in a field with plastic liners inserted at depths of 0.30, 0.45, 0.60, 0.75, and 0.90m to limit the rooting depth and thus the amount of available water. Compared to the long term mean (508mm), distinct distribution patterns and amounts of rainfall among the three growing seasons (290, 675, and 440mm in 2007, 2008 and 2009, respectively) resulted in significant differences in yield and seed composition among years. The overall yield, seed weight (gseed−1), oil concentration, linoleic acid and linolenic acid were the lowest and protein concentration, palmitic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid were the highest in 2007 compared to the other two years. These differences were greater in plants grown under severe rooting depth restrictions. Restricted rooting depth affected soybean seed quality such as protein and oil concentration and fatty acid composition, not only when rainfall was below average, but also when it was above average. The amount of rainfall received from beginning of pod development through full pod (R3–R4) stages was highly correlated with yield, seed weight, oil and protein. Yield and seed weight were negatively correlated with protein and positively with oil, and protein and oil were strongly negatively correlated. Linoleic and linolenic acids were negatively correlated with palmitic, stearic and oleic acids. Under non-limiting moisture conditions (2008), a rooting depth of 0.30m appeared to provide ample resources for plant growth, indicating that effects observed in drier years were largely a function of water availability. Results presented in this study illustrate that artificially limiting rooting depth under field conditions may serve as means to manipulate plant-available soil water to study plant responses to water deficit stress without modifying the above-ground environment.

Keywords: Restricted rooting depths; Plastic liners; Protein; Oil; Fatty acid; Seed yield (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377412000030
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:agiwat:v:105:y:2012:i:c:p:38-47

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2011.12.025

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().