Influence of low light intensity on growth and yield of four soybean cultivars during wet and dry seasons of northeast thailand

Anan Polthanee, Khanistha Promsaena, Anucha Laoken

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DOI: 10.4236/as.2011.22010                

Abstract

Crop is commonly grown in intercrop combinations of which cereal/legumes are the most widespread in tropical countries. The availability of low light inten-sity due to shading is the critical factor in determin-ing legume yield in intercropping. The experiment searches of better soybean cultivar for intercropping. A field experiment was conducted at the experimen-tal farm of Khon Kaen University in 2005. The objec-tives of this study were to determine the influence of light regimes (30% of normal light, 50% of normal light and normal light) on the growth and yield of four soybean cultivars (early, medium and late ma-turity) under artificial shading at 35 days after seed-ing until harvest in the wet and dry seasons. The re-sults showed that grain yield was significantly (p<0.05) decreased under the low light intensity at 30% of natural light both in wet and dry season. This was mainly due to low light intensity at 30% of natural light decreasing the number of pods per plant in the dry season. For cultivars, grain yield was sig-nificantly difference (p<0.05) among cultivars both in the wet and dry seasons. The cultivar KKU 74 (me-dium maturity) gave maximum grain yield both in wet and dry season under the low light at 30% of natural light. The KKU74 cultivar is better adapted to shading environment than other cultivars. This was due to the KKU74 cultivar produced higher chlorophyll b concentration in leaves after the plant experienced to shading. This physiological character can be used for soybean breeding program in shading tolerance. Therefore, the cultivar KKU 74 had a higher potential yield advantage in intercropping systems in which low light intensity is a major limit-ing factor on grain yield.

Keywords

Chlorophyll Concentration; Shading; Soybean

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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