A comparative study of yield of selected varieties of glycine max l . in Najjembe Sub-County Buikwe District, Uganda.

Abstract

Despite of more of more research and development of new soybean varieties in Uganda, the adoption of these varieties by farmers in several districts is still low. In this the following study off station evaluation was carried out for identification of suitable cultivars for an agro-climatic zone of Najjembe sub-county in Buikwe district. Moreover, this was so since selection of suitable plant traits showing maximum contribution to final seed yield is important for plant breeders. To find out the superior varieties that are adapted to Najjembe sub-county farming environments in Uganda Maksoy 4N, Maksoy3N and Najsoy a local cultivar were tested through field study for growth and yield performance. Experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design (RCBD). Soybean variety Maksoy 4N showed best performance as it gave significantly higher seed yield (522.2 kg ha-1), biomass (1477 kg ha-1) plant population (27.33 plants per meter), plant height (24.70 cm), number of leaves plant-1 (19.30), number of pods plant-1 (14.20), number of seeds pod-1 (2.63) and number of seed plant-1 (29.50). Contrastingly, soybean Variety Najsoy was found to be inferior as it gave lowest value of these parameters. Seed yield showed a significant positive relationship with plant population (R2=0.865), plant height (R2=0.652), leaves per plant (R2 =0.637) and plant biomass (R2=0.793), number of pods per plant (R2 =0.681), number of seeds per pod (R2 =0.793) and number of seeds per plant (R2 =0.685) whereas non-significant negative relationship with 100 seed weight. The strongest relationship of seed yield was seen with number of seeds pod-1 followed by number of pods plant-1 and the weakest with plant biomass (b=0.277). Therefore these traits should be considered to be most important while selecting improved soybean varieties under Najjembe conditions.