How to Improve Soybean Quality
The most important quality criteria for soybean are protein and fat content.
Climatic and local conditions can influence quality.
- Extreme weather: Anything that in any way removes leaves from the soybean plants like wind, heavy rain or hail, will affect protein and oil content. This also applies to leaf-eating insect damage.
- Water and drought: Drought early in the season can reduce protein content, but drought late in the season will increase protein content. The late-season drought reduces oil content which has an inverse effect on the protein content.
- Temperature: The effect of temperature is quite complicated and not well understood. However, it is known that general high temperatures reduce overall yield, and higher temperatures at the end of the season have a tendency to increase oil and not protein.
Effect of nutrition on soybean quality
It is important to select the right soybean variety in order to get plants suited for the local climate. Once having the correct variety, the best way to influence the quality of soybeans is through proper and well-managed nutrition.
Ensuring availability of all nutrients can positively influence seed chemical composition and affect plant metabolism and vigor. Adequate crop nutrition and soil acidity alleviation can positively affect oil and protein content of soybean seeds.
