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Abstract
Soybean is one of the five crops that dominate global agriculture, along with maize, wheat, cotton and rice. In Europe, soybean still plays a minor role and is cultivated mainly in the South and East. Very little is known about the potential for soybean in higher latitudes with relatively cool conditions. To investigate the agronomic potential and limitations of soybean for feed (high grain yield) and food (high protein content, e.g., for tofu production) in higher latitudes, an organic soybean cropping system experiment was carried out from 2015 to 2017 in northeastern Germany. The objectives were: (1) to identify food- and feed-grade soybean cultivars that are adapted to a central European climate in terms of protein, grain yield, and yield stability, (2) to explore the effect of irrigation on soybean protein and grain yield under relatively dry growing conditions, and (3) to determine the agro-economic potential of soybean cultivation for both feed and food markets. Three soybean cultivars were tested with and without irrigation. The soybean feed-grade cultivars ‘Sultana’ and ‘Merlin’ were better adapted to the growing cycle and temperature, providing higher and more stable yields (average 2700 kg ha−1) than the food-grade cultivar ‘Protibus’ (average 1300 kg ha−1). Irrigation increased soybean grain yields by 41% on average. In the year with sufficient precipitation, no additional irrigation was necessary. Gross margins of organic soybean ranged between 750 € ha−1 for the rainfed food-grade soybean and 2000 € ha−1 for the irrigated feed-grade soybean and were higher than other crops. We demonstrated a large agro-economic potential for soybean as a novel grain legume crop to diversify cropping systems and increase the production of protein crops in central Europe.
Highlights
Due to its high protein content and ideal amino acid composition, soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) is considered as an excellent feed supplement, for monogastric animals (Montoya et al, 2017), and has become one of the most important commodities in global trade (Sun et al, 2018)
We estab lished a multi-year experiment with the aim of determining the pro ductivity, stability, irrigation requirements and profitability of typical soybean cultivars in northern Germany, with the following objectives: (1) to identify food- and feed-grade soybean cultivars that are adapted to a central European climate in terms of protein, grain yield, and yield stability, (2) to explore the effect of irrigation on soybean protein and grain yield under relatively dry growing conditions, and (3) to deter mine the agro-economic potential of soybean cultivation for both feed and food markets
This study showed that the tested food-grade cultivar achieved a high protein content, but because of its low yield and sensitivity to low temperatures, it cannot be identified as site-adapted
Summary
Due to its high protein content and ideal amino acid composition, soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) is considered as an excellent feed supplement, for monogastric animals (Montoya et al, 2017), and has become one of the most important commodities in global trade (Sun et al, 2018). The area of organically managed soybean is still small but has doubled in three years to about 560,000 ha (fibl.statistics, 2020) or 0.5% of the total soybean area. The European Union imported an annual average of 14 million tonnes of soybeans and 18 million tonnes of soybean cake in the five years to 2019 (EUROStat, 2021), of which all but 2 million tonnes came from other continents (FAOStat, 2021). The EU grew 2.7 million tonnes of soybean while non-EU European countries pro duced another 8.4 million tonnes (EUROStat, 2021; FAOStat, 2021). The high demand for soybean protein in Europe is an important reason for expanding soybean cultivation to central and northern growing areas where it is a minor crop, e.g. with only 33 thousand hectares in Germany in 2020 compared to 2.7 million hectares of maize (destatis, 2021). European self-sufficiency in soybean would require 9 – 12% of its arable land to be sown to this crop (Guilpart et al, 2020)
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