Chapter 12 - Soybean

Abstract

Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) is one of the most important dual-purpose crops in the world having a variety of uses as an oil and high-protein crop. Soy oil, as well as its oil-extracted meal, finds a number of uses for domestic, animal, and industrial purposes. Soybean finds a principal place in the agricultural production systems of many countries including the United States, China, Brazil, and Argentina besides finding an important place in the predominant cropping systems of several other countries of the world including India. Realizing the importance of soybean, extensive efforts have been undertaken globally to make genetic improvements to it through conventional breeding, which has been complemented by genomics and molecular marker technology in recent years. This has resulted in the development of a number of improved varieties for different agroecological zones, including high yield, high input use efficiency, photoperiod insensitivity, improved nodulation and nitrogen fixation ability, as well as resistance/tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. This has led to an impressive improvement in production and productivity of soybean over the last 30 years. Despite its relatively large and complex genome, significant progress has been made toward development of molecular and cytogenetic tools. Simultaneously, remarkable progress has also been made in alien gene introgressions, marker-assisted breeding, and genetic transformation. Improvement in protein content and nutritional quality of soy grains and modification of the fatty acid profile of soy oil have established soybean as one of the most viable commercial crops. We discuss in this chapter, various aspects of soybean development covering its history and origin, crop biology, genetics, breeding, and crop improvements, as well as its industrial and domestics uses.