The effects of simulated weed pressure on early maturity soybeans

Breeding for increased weed suppression would be a sustainable contribution to improved soybean weed management, because weed infestation is a major constraint to soybean production world-wide and in organic farming in particular. However, genetic variation in the soybean-weed interaction would be necessary to enable plant breeders to select soybean genotypes based on a superior weed suppression behavior. As there is a lack of information on variation between soybean cultivars in their competitive ability against weeds, the effects of weed pressure on ten early maturity soybean genotypes were studied in a controlled field experiment over three years in Austria. Winter oilseed rape was sown into the soybean stand to simulate pressure from a seed-propagated type of weed. Weed pressure significantly affected soybean yield as well as other agronomic, phenologic and seed quality characters. In two seasons, strong competition from weeds caused a soybean yield reduction of 370 and 560 kg/ha, respectively. In a third season a significant yield increase over weed-free controls was observed at relatively low levels of weed pressure which is explained by non-competition effects of a weak weed ground cover on soybean growth. Yield loss clue to weed pressure was lower in early than in late maturity genotypes which appears to be the effect of a better weed tolerance rather than weed suppression. Genotype by weed treatment interaction was not significant, and genetic variation in ground cover development or leaf area was low or not significant in the early maturity soybean cultivars investigated. As such characters are considered important for weed suppression, their variation needs to be increased to enable selection for improved weed suppressive ability. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.