Top Crop Manager: Taller soybeans for a low-stress harvest

Anyone who’s combined a soybean field knows the trade-off: Cut the crop as low as possible and risk damaging the header on the ground or raise the cutter bar slightly and leave some beans behind. Some studies estimate up to 20 per cent of soybean crops can be lost during harvest, and we know this problem is especially prevalent in the short-season varieties grown on the Canadian Prairies. If only soybean pods didn’t grow so close to the ground.

Belay Ayele, plant science professor at the University of Manitoba, has an idea that might help. Much of Ayele’s research career has focused on plant hormones – compounds produced naturally by plants to regulate their growth and development. In other research, he’s looked for ways to balance plant hormones to influence germination in wheat and barley.

Given his experience with plant hormones and how plants grow, Ayele wondered if plant growth regulators (PGRs) – the compounds we use to keep wheat plants from growing too high and lodging – could also be used to make soybean plants grow taller.

With funding from the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers (MPSG) and the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, Ayele and his research team put this idea to the test. While the solution isn’t ready for the field just yet, Ayele has proof of concept. “It works,” Ayele says.

Read the article in Top Crop Manager