Soybean Variety Evaluation for Integration into the Cropping Systems

Abstract

The PAVT trial was conducted at two sites in Mozambique: Angonia, Tete province and Namarripe, Zambezia province. According to the Soils Atlas of Africa, the predominant soil type at these sites in Angonia and Namarripe is Chromic Luvisol. The effects of sites (p=0.0002), varieties (p<0.0001), and their interactions (p<0.0001) significantly affected yields. Site differences were prominent in both performances of varieties and yield values. For instance, SNKM003 had 1487 kg ha-1 at Namarripe and 5080 kg ha-1 at Angonia while Gazelle yielded 2388 kg ha-1 at Namarripe and 5463 kg ha-1 at Angonia. Mean yield for all varieties at Angonia was 4294 kg ha-1 and higher than at Namarripe (2863 kg ha-1). There was also a distinction in the five best performing varieties at the two sites except for SC signal and S1180-5-54 that were among the cluster of high yielding genotypes at both sites (Table 1). In addition to yield, there were also diverse values for the 100 seed weight. Among these varieties, S1079-6-7 (25.9 g) had the highest 100 seed weight at Angonia and SC SAGA (control line) (21.2 g) had the highest at Namarripe. The five top yielding varieties also had low scores for soybean rust and bacterial pustule at R3 and R6 growth stages and showed no signs of lodging. The yield ranges were from 2125 kg ha-1 for PANORAMA 3 to 5790 kg ha-1 for S1079-6-7 at Angonia and from 1197 kg ha-1 for BLACKHAWK to 4367 kg ha-1 for SC SAGA (control line) at Namarripe. Since the effect of sites was highly significant, cluster analysis comparing the performances of varieties was conducted for each location. There were five clusters with R2 ≥ 0.96 identified for each location with distinct yield ranges (See Figure appendix). The clusters show the likelihood of attaining similar yields for the varieties at each site.