Abstract
A pot experiment was conducted in spring season during 2018 under the coastal environmental conditions of Lasbela University of Agriculture, Water and Marine Sciences to examine the effect of planting date on seed yield and quality traits of soybean. In this study three sowing dates (T1 = Mid-January, T2 = Early February and T3 = Mid- February) were tested against three soybean varieties (NARC-I, NARC-II and Rawal) in CRD with four replicates. The results revealed that the effect of sowing dates on seed germination percentage was non-significant (p>0.05) but significant (p<0.05) on rest of the growth, yield and other quality traits of soybean. Similarly, varietal effect on all the growth, yield and its contributing traits were significant (p<0.05). Apart from germination percentage (79.79, 80.33, 81.35 %), significant difference between Mid-January, Early February and Mid-February sowing was determined for plant height (46.89 cm), pods plant-1 (74.79), pod length (4.90 cm), seed weight plant-1 (6.15 g), total biomass weight plant-1(22.91 g), harvest index (26.95 %), number of nodules plant-1 (15.09), root length (8.90 cm), protein content (44.11 %) and oil content (23.64 %), respectively. In case of soybean varieties, NARC- I, NARC-II and Rawal showed significant variation for seed germination (85.35 %), plant height (49.68 cm), pods plant-1(82.07), pod length (5.15 cm), seed weight plant-1 (6.27 g), plant biomass weight plant-1 (23.16 g), harvest index (28.33 %), number of nodules plant-1 (15.87), root length (9.36 cm), protein content (43.36 %) and oil content (23.99 %), respectively. It was concluded that sowing of soybean in first fortnight of February resulted in optimistic results in relation to seed weight plant-1. Too early (Mid-January) or too late (Mid-February) sowing showed similarity (p>0.05) for pods plant-1 and seed weight plant-1. Insignificant (p>0.05) difference between early February and mid- February sowing was observed for pod length, harvest index, nodules plant-1 and root length. On the basis of overall performance, variety NARC-I ranked 1st, NARC-II ranked 2nd and Rawal ranked 3rd; while interactive effect of NARC-II × Early- February sowing maximized seed weight plant-1; while variety Rawal × Early-February sowing resulted in maximum biomass weight. Similarly, interaction of variety ‘NARC-II’ × Mid-February sowing resulted in highest protein content; while interactive effect of variety ‘NARC-II’ × Early-February sowing resulted in highest oil content.
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