Agric. sci. dev., Vol(3), No (4), April, 2014. pp.

140-145

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Agriculture Science Developments

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Determination of sensitive growth stages of soybean to photoperiod

Nabi khaliliaqdam *
Assistant Professor, Department of Agriculture, Payame Noor University, Saghez, Iran.
*Corresponding author: nkhaliliaqdam@yahoo.com

Keywords

Abstract

Growth stage
Thermal time
Soybean
Photoperiod

Soybean (Glycine max L.) is considered to have a quantitative short-day response to photoperiod. The
objective of this study was to detect of susceptibility of growth phases of soybean to photoperiod. In this
research, a cultivar of soybean (Sahar) was sown serially in 6 sowing dates (110,133,154, 180, 184, 203
DOY) in 2011. Plants Sown in April, May, June and July, flowered in summer at about June 22 to August
29. Thermal time for Flowering and pod initiation decreased 162 and 171.5 oC per 1 h.d-1photoperiod
significantly but variation of thermal time vs. photoperiod for pod filling and maturity no significant.
Flowering and pod initiation delayed up to 68 and 34 days when day long decreased to about 13.7-15.7 h
respectively, expressing that soybean accelerate responsive to photoperiod until it limited to short-days. It
was resulted that soybean can be classified as a qualitative short-day plant.

1.

Introduction

The processes regulation crop development are complex due to interaction between genetic and environment factors. Water deficit, nutrients,
radiation and CO2 may affect the rate of development but these factors have only small effects on development of soybean [24]. The two dominant
abiotic factors influencing soybean phenology are temperature and photoperiod [27]. Sensitivity to photoperiod is generally quantitative rather
than qualitative [33]. Most plants are classified by their quantitative photoperiodic response according to the change in the rate of development
and thereby in the length of the phases in response to photoperiodic.
Originally, soybean is a crop of tropical regions and short-day which cultivars from low maturity groups present a lower sensitivity and a higher
photoperiod threshold than genotypes of high maturity groups [25]. Photoperiod affects developmental rates of soybean including flowering to
maturity and the time of flowering to maturity are increased by direct expose to long photoperiod [11, 144, 28]. Photoperiod not only restrict
flowering but restrict the days from flowering to podding, the day from flowering to maturity and the vegetative and reproductive growth also [2].
In a study, have been demonstrated that the response of soybean varieties from emergence to flowering was most sensitive to day-length [21].
Fleming et al (1997) studied the pattern of development in soybean cultivars Biloxi(photoperiod sensitivity) and Fiskeby V(photoperiod
insensitive) and resulted that there were inherent differences between cultivars in earliness of flowering, vegetative development and therefore in
yield potential. Plant date and geographical latitude could effect on diverse in sensitivity of soybean cultivars to photoperiod [7]. Peizhan et al.
(1989) concluded that Photoperiodic sensitivity of variety type is incompletely related to geographical latitude [21]. Others has revealed that
soybean plants became sensitive to 8, 10, 12 and 14 h photoperiod at -1, 0, 1, 9 day after seedling emergence, respectively [35]. The results of
Tian-fu and Jig-ling (1995) indicated that the response to post flowering photoperiod exited among all varieties with different maturity stages and
this response was found not only at the stages of flowering and poding but also at the stage of seed filling but early studies have shown that time
from planting to flowering in soybean was mediated by photoperiod [34]. The length of the photoperiod-insensititive phase have been showed that
increased when photoperiod during the photoperiod-sensitive phase was>13.5h [1]. Photoperiod, modifies the temperature response in soybean, a
short-day plant, in that long daylength slows the development rate [27]. Although there was evidence of photoperiod control of post-flowering
reproductive development in soybean under controlled-environment conditions [13, 14].
Temperature has a positive influence on the rate of crop development and generally the higher temperature accelerate the rate of development and
consequently the decrease the time to complete a particular development phase [29]. In all species, development responses to temperature start as
soon as the seed imbibes and continue until maturity [4, 12]. From the various models that have been proposed to predict the timing of development
as affected by temperature, the most widely accepted is the thermal time. The thermal time model is the calendar time weighted by the thermal
conditions; it assumes that the rate of development increases linearly with temperature between the cardinal thresholds of base and optimum
temperatures [25].Thermal time has been widely used in agriculture, especially to quantify and predict phonological events, because it is more
accurate than using chronological time or the predictions of events according to the season of the year [5, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20]. Others research have
been done on effects of temperature and photoperiod on phonological development[8, 9, 16, 30, 36]. Soybean is an important industrial crop and
generally considered to be a quantitative short-day plant which reporters revealed that soybean cultivars has diverse behavior to photoperiod. It is
grown ecologically in eastern north and northern of Iran but so far has not been report about sensitivity growth phases and qualitative behavior of
soybean (cv. Sahar) in response to photoperiod in Iran before.

2.

Methodology

A serially sown filed experiment of soybean (cv.Sahar) carried out at the Research Farm of Gorgon University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural
Resources (latitude 3651N; longitude 5416E; Altitude 13.3 m above sea level). The experiment design was Randomized complete blocks,
replicated four times. The experiment started in April and continued until July 2011. Sowing dates (day of year, DOY) were 19 April (110), 12
May (133), 2 June (154), 28 June (180), 2 July (184) and 21 July (203). The soil was silt- clay. Seeds were treated with 1.5 g/kg Benomyl and then
were sowed at depths of 2.5 cm at a density of 28 Pln/m2. 5 rows were sown for each plot, each of which was 4 m long and they were spaced at
50 cm apart. Soil moisture was kept sufficiently wet for germination and subsequent irrigation was carried out as required. Therefore, there was
no effect of flooding or water deficit stresses. Weeds were hand-controlled during the experiment and several spraying were carried out against
diseases and pests. Phonological stages as: emergence (50% of plants with some parts at soil surface) flowering (50% of plants with one flower at
any node, R1), pod initiation (50% of plants with 0.5 cm pod at one of the 4 upper nodes with unrolled leaf, R3), pod filling (50% of plants with
peas beginning to develop, R5) and maturity (50% of plants with pods yellowing, R7) noted every 2 days [6].

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Determination of sensitive growth stages of soybean to photoperiod

Agriculture Science Developments Vol(3), No (4), April, 2014.

In the all experiments, daily maximum and minimum temperatures, sunshine hours and rainfall were measured at a standard weather station located
a few meters from the experimental units. Then
and
were used for calculating mean of temperature. Photoperiod for each day was
calculated from latitude, calendar day and sunshine hours include allowance for civil twilight when solar angle 4.0[15]. This solar angle was
selected based on minimum luminance for soybean that is 6 lux [33]. Considering the well-known photoperiod flower induction response in
soybean, the use of a photoperiod function in soybean phenology modeling is based on thermal time reasonable. To separate effect of photoperiod
and temperature on time to each phase, thermal time calculated. For revelation of sensitivity and behavior of phenophases to photoperiod, the first
thermal time in each phases plotted vs. plant date (DOY; day of year) and photoperiod (h):
12-

Photoperiod insensitive or neutral, if they do not respond to photoperiod in any developmental phases; therefore thermal time to flowering
is fairly constant across locations or sowing date (if insensitive to vernalization).
Photoperiod sensitive, if duration of at least some of its development phases increase (short day species) or decrease (long day species)
in line with photoperiod [24].

Thermal time all of phenophases (R1, R3, R5 and R7) calculated by accumulating daily thermal time after each phenophase till next phenophase.
Daily thermal time (DTT, oC d) calculated as:
(
(
(
(

) = ( )(
)
) = 1
) = ( )(
)
) = 0

< <

< <

< <
< >

Where T is average daily temperature and

and are the upper optimum and ceiling temperature for development all the temperatures are in
oC, ,
,
and were 8, 30, 35 and 45oC, respectively [31]. The value of TT was calculated as daily thermal time (
, oC d):
=(
=

) ( )

Where, ( ) is a scalar factor that counts for sun-and supra-optimal temperature on development rate and
,
and
are daily thermal
time, accumulative thermal time and daily thermal time of last day.
and are the base and the lower optimum temperatures for development,
respectively. Finally, analysis of variance of the predicted phonological stages calculated using SAS software [26].

3.

Results and Discussion

A wide range in the duration of crop phenol-phases resulted from the serially sown field experiment (Table 1). Temperature and photoperiod
alteration changes during the experiment are shown in Fig.1. Temperature ranged between 7.2 to 40.2 for maximum temperature and between 0.6
to 28.2 for minimum temperature. Day-length varied between 11.58 and 15.71 h per day during experiments (Table 1). Examination of sowing
dates showed that with delay in sowing date, days to flowering and days to pod initiation decreased along with decrease in photoperiod. For
example, days to flowering (VE-R1) ranged between 34 and 55 days and Flowering occurred between 206-249 DOY for sowing dates. This range
was between 12-32 day for pod initiation phase. Variation for duration R5 (pod filling) and R7 (maturity) was relatively limited (10-15). Figure 2
shows thermal time from emergence-R1, R1-R3, R3-R5 and R5-R7 vs. day of year. There was a strong correlation between TT and DOY in R1
and R3 stages. With photoperiod about 13.96-15.7 h.d-1 in VE-R1 phase and 13.68-15.21 h.d-1 in R1-R3 phase, thermal time suddenly declined
about -3.55 and -2.98 oC.DOY-1. Clearly, soybean sensitivity to diminish in day-length as delaying in sowing date upgrade .
Although, days form emergence to flowering and flowering to pod initiation became short up to 21 and 29 days when photoperiod decreased to
13.96 h and 13.68 respectively but variation in the duration of the post flowering phenol-phase as R3-R5 and R5-R7 phases was limited. For R3R5 and R5-R7 phases response thermal time to delaying in sowing data were no significant and limited. It means that R5 and R7 had lower sensitive
or are insensitive to photoperiod. Similarly, Peizhan et al., (1989) showed that the response of days from emergence to flowering was most sensitive
to daylight [21]. Reported that both flowering (post-induction) and node appearance respond to temperature, but only flowering (R1) responds to
day-length thus, longer day-length during the floral inductive phase at later planting dates caused R1 to occur at later V-stage, and the earlier
occurrence of R5 limited the total number of nodes at later planting dates due to the earlier cessation of node appearance [27]. The present results
contradict the general conclusion that photoperiod influence on development rates of soybean including flowering to maturity [3, 10, 15, 23, 28,
34]. Although, have been discussed that in soybean, highly sensitive cultivars to photoperiod during early phases (e.g. R1) are usually highly
sensitive during later phases but the association is not strict [13] and combinations of different sensitive at different phases might be possible [25].
Response curve of thermal time for flowering, pod initiation, pod filling and maturity to photoperiod in this study is similar to the curve of
qualitative short-day plants (Fig.2). Because of reduced variation resulted from the qualitative response of flowering to photoperiod in soybean,
this qualitative response of post flowering stages occurred during October and mid-November when there was much less variation in temperature
and photoperiod. The post-flowering stages (especially R5 and R7) occurred during late summer and early of autumn when there was much less
variation in temperature and photoperiod. For example, days to pod filling did not response to photoperiod.
Thermal time for R1 and R3 declined -162 and -171.5 oC.1h photoperiod day (Fig.3). With photoperiod of higher than 15.3 h per day, days to
flowering and thermal time increase suddenly, indicating day length of 15.8-16 h per day as a probable ceiling critical photoperiod. Lower critical
photoperiod for photoperiod sensitive phase, also reported that is 13.50.1 h. For photoperiod >13.5 h, there was a linear increase in the number
of days needed for photoperiod to cause flower induction as photoperiod increased [1]. Thus results revealed that soybean can be considered as a
qualitative short-day plant, in which flowering does not take place at photoperiod longer than a critical value .On other plants, in a study, Soltani
et al. (2004) conducted that chickpea can also be considered as a qualitative long-day plant; in which flowering does not take place at photoperiod
lower than a critical value [32]. Flowering and fruit-set were both delayed by lengthening the photoperiod, the effects being cumulative.Although,
at all of sowing dates, temperature in flowering phase increased but days to flowering and thermal time for flowering decrease ed. It indicated that
response of flowering and pod initiation to photoperiod is more than temperature and shortage in phonological days declined thermal time for
these stages. Temperature generally has a positive influence on the rate of crop development; it means that all crops and all phases of development

Nabi Khaliliaqdam *

142

Agriculture Science Developments Vol(3), No (4), April, 2014.

are sensitive to temperature [29]. In a study has been showed that period between emergence and flowering was influenced by temperature and
photoperiod [23] but in comparison to temperature, photoperiod responses are more complex and modifies the temperature response in soybean, a
short-day plant, in that long day-length slows the development rate thus the maturity group classification for soybean cultivars in the U.S. is based
on soybean development response to photoperiod [27].

Table 1. The range and mean of specific phenophases (h.d-1), observed duration (days) and temperature (oC) in the
Serially sown field experiment.
Stage\Parameters
Photoperiod (h.d-1)
Emergence to flowering (VE-R1)
Flowering to first-poding (R1-R3)
First pod to beginning seed growth (R3-R5)
Beginning seed growth to maturity (R5-R7)
Specific phenophases
Emergence to flowering )VE-R1)
Flowering to first-poding (R1-R3)
First pod to beginning seed growth (R3-R5)
Beginning seed growth to maturity (R5-R7)
Temperature(oC)
Emergence to flowering )VE-R1)
Flowering to first-poding (R1-R3)
First pod to beginning seed growth (R3-R5)
Beginning seed growth to maturity (R5-R7)

Min

Max

Mean

13.96
13.68
13.13
11.6

15.71
15.21
14.74
13.29

15.07
14.46
14.0
12.5

34
12
10
22

55
41
15
41

43.2
26
12.5
34.6

23.42
25.22
24.62
19.72

30.5
31.43
31.39
26.54

27.9
28.6
27.55
24.05

15.5

13.5
12.5

10.5

Serially sowing date

203

11.5

110

Day long mean(h)

14.5

9.5
0 25 50 75 100125150175200225250275300325350
DOY(day)

Figure 1. Temperature and photoperiod alteration during the experiment from 1-365 DOY at Gorgon (2011).

143

Determination of sensitive growth stages of soybean to photoperiod

Agriculture Science Developments Vol(3), No (4), April, 2014.

900

400

800

350

700

300
250

500

TT(oC)

TT(oC)

600
VE-R1
y = -3.55x + 1083.71
R2 = 0.94
(P<0.01)

400
300

R1-R3
y = -2.98x + 651.89
2
R = 0.96
(P<0.01)

200
150
100

200

50

100

0
50

75

100

125

150

175

200

225

50

250

75

100

125

150

175

200

225

250

175

200

225

250

DOY(d)

DOY(d)

200

700

175

600

150
500

TT(oC)

TT(oC)

125
100
R3-R5
75

y = -0.47x + 181.14
R2 = 0.51
(P>0.05)

50

400
R5-R7
300

y = 0.20x + 386.25
R2 = 0.04
(P>0.05)

200

25

100

0
50

75

100

125

150

175

200

225

250

50

75

100

125

DOY(d)

150
DOY(d)

Figure 2. Calculated thermal time vs. DOY (date sowing) during periods of vegetative-R1, R1-R3, R3-R5 and R5-R7 in soybean
.
400

800
VE-R1
y = 162.03x - 1,907.63
R = 0.81
(P<0.01)

300

600

TT(oC)

TT(oC)

700

R1-R3
y = 171.51x - 2,308.76
R = 0.89
(P<0.01)

350

500

250
200
150
100

400

50
300
13

13.5

14

14.5

15

15.5

16

16.5

17

13

13.5

200
175
150

14.5

15

15.5

16

525
R3-R5
y = 24.65x - 239.24
R = 0.43
(P>0.05)

R5-R7
y=-24.14x+722.87
R2=0.21
P>0.05

500
475

TT(oC.)

125

TT(oC.)

14

Photoperiod(h.d-1)

Photoperiod(h.d-1)

100

450
425

75
400

50

375

25
0
12.5

350
13

13.5

14

14.5

Photoperiod(h.d-1)

15

15.5

11

11.5

12

12.5

13

13.5

14

Photoperiod(h.d-1)

Figure 3. Calculated thermal time vs. Photoperiod during periods of vegetative-R1, R1-R3, R3-R5 and R5-R7 in soybea

Nabi Khaliliaqdam *

144

Agriculture Science Developments Vol(3), No (4), April, 2014.

Conclusion
Overall, the results of this study indicate that in soybean (cv. Sahar): (*)Flowering and pod initiation phases are sensitive to photoperiod and
clearly, if sowing date delay, plants more sensitive to short length days. (**)This cultivar can be considered as a qualitative short day plant, in
which flowering does not take place at photoperiod longer than a critical value.

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