Evaluation of Soybean Cultivars performance in Kentucky

Evaluation of soybean cultivars performance in Kentucky – Year 4 The long-term goal of this project is to characterize the impact of local environments on soybean development and performance in Kentucky. Soybean varieties should fulfill agronomic performance defined as yield, stress tolerance, and oil and protein product quality. Crop variety evaluation requires methodological innovations to develop better for better recommendations. Environmental conditions affect soybean performance in term of yield and seed quality outcomes. Here, we propose to monitor environmental conditions, Growth and reproductive stages during the soybean growing season at each of the trials test sites. of randomly selected soybean varieties will also be monitored. These sets of data will be collected from soybean production farms as well as research experimental farms, with a total of 8 independent locations in all major soybean production areas in Kentucky. The 2022 data will be analyzed with 2021 and 2020 datasets, to compare test sites and evaluate how to optimize data analysis for recommendation to farmers for the selection of the best varieties for their production systems. The data generated will continue to build an open access databases: the KY phenomics database and the Mid-South Soybean database. Both databases will constitute an unbiased and open access source of information for soybean producers, researchers, and seed breeders. The KY comprehensive database will be used to develop predictive models for soybean yield, seed quality, and will provide inputs for breeders to develop varieties better adapted to Kentucky environments.