Effect of sowing dates and varieties on soybean performance in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India

Abstract

oybean production is widely fluctuating in response to agro-environmental conditions year to year in Vidarbha region. Weather variations are the major determinants of soybean growth and yield. It is also important to study the response of suitable soybean varieties to varying weather parameters. So a field investigation was carried out to study the crop weather relationship of soybean and to optimize the sowing date with different soybean varie-ties. The results revealed that soybean crop sown up to 27th MW accumulated higher growing degree days (1640.5 0C day), photothermal units (20498.1 0C day hour) and recorded significantly higher seed yield (839 kg ha-1) and biological yield (2773 kg ha-1) with maximum heat use efficiency (0.51 kg ha-1°C day-1) and water productivity (2.49 kg ha-mm-1). Later sowings i.e. 30th MW sowing caused decreased amount of rainfall and increased maximum temperature regime across the total growing period with consequently lower seed yield (530 kg ha-1), GDD (1539.2 0C day), PTU (18689.9 0C day hour), heat use efficiency (0.34kg ha-1 °Cday-1) and water productivity (2.05kg ha-mm-1). Soybean variety TAMS 98-21 recorded significantly higher seed yield (734 kg ha-1) and highest biological yield (2649 kg ha-1) with maximum heat use efficiency (0.44 kg ha-1 °C day-1), GDD (1650.5 0C day ) and water productivity (2.41 kg ha-mm-1). Thus, the results of this study illustrated the importance of early sowing with suitable variety of soybean and indicates that sowing upto 27th MW with variety TAMS 98-21 is optimum for maximizing the yield in the Akola region of Vidarbha.