Soybean School: Early flowering has pros and cons

by

It has long been believed that soybean doesn’t flower until after the summer solstice — June 21, the longest day of the year. Research from Dr. Shawn Conley and his team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison says otherwise, and in this episode of Soybean School, Conley joins Bernard Tobin to chat about early flowering in soybeans.

Soybeans are a ‘short-day’ plant, but this name is misleading because soybeans actually measure the length of the night, not the day. So, soybean flowering is induced when the night is longest.

“By planting our soybeans earlier, we’re actually triggering flowering  induction as the days start getting longer,” says Conley. “So we’re actually triggering it on the front end, where typically when we used to plant soybeans, we were triggering it on the back end.”

Modern genetics in soybeans mean specific adaptation to latitudinal zones and allow for less vegetative growing time by about a week, and about an extra two weeks at the reproductive stage. Adding management practices into that, the grain-fill period has been extended.

The downside of earlier flowering means quicker vegetative growth and that quick canopy closure can mean white mould, something to be conscious of, says Conley. “We can’t spray by calendar,” says Conley. “If we’re planting earlier we need to make sure we’re out there scouting.” That R1 timing is crucial for fungicide timing.

Stressful environmental conditions — drought in particular — could mean flower or pod abortion; however, since soybeans can flower for up to six weeks, it means the plant can still produce more flowers. Those dry conditions might also help out with the fungicide bill.

Watch the full interview between Conley and Tobin below: 

Check out this great article from Conley and his research team on the Soybean Flowering Fallacy.

Other Episodes

Soybean School (view all)Season 9 (2020) Episode 17
Episodes:

Please register to read and comment.

Privacy Preference Center

Necessary

Necessary cookies help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.

gdpr, __cfduid, PHPSESSID, wordpress_test_cookie, woocommerce_items_in_cart, woocommerce_cart_hash, wp_woocommerce_session, wordpress_logged_in, wordpress_sec, wp-settings, wp-settings-time, __cf_mob_redir, wordpress_cache, realag
__cfduid

Marketing

Measuring interactions with the ads on the domain.

__gads,fsk_ut_2317
IDE

Statistics

These are used to track user interaction and detect potential problems. These help us improve our services by providing analytical data on how users use this site.

_ga,_gid,_gat,_cb,_chartbeat2,_chartbeat4
_ga,_gid
metrics_token

Preferences

Preference cookies enable the website to remember information that changes the way the website behaves or looks, like your preferred language or the region that you are in.

chartdefaults, comment_author, comment_author_email, comment_author_url
JSESSIONID, _os_session,anonymous_votes,csrf-param,csrf-token,user,user-id,user-platform,intercom-session,intercom-lou,intercom-session
personalization_id, tfw_exp

 

Register for a RealAgriculture account to manage your Shortcut menu instead of the default.

Register