Genotypic Variation in Flowering and Maturing Periods and Their Relations with Plant Yield and Yield Components in Soybean

Improvement of crop yield can be achieved through understanding genetic variation in reproductive characters and its impact on yield components. The present study was performed to evaluate genetic diversity for reproductive growth characters in exotic germplasm resources and to determine the relationships between developmental and growth periods with yield and yield components in soybean cultivar groups. For phenotypic evaluation such as reproductive and agronomic traits, a total of 80 indigenous and exotic soybean cultivars collected from four different geographical regions (China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam) were grown from May to November of 2003 at the Seoul National University Farm, Suwon, Korea ($127^{\circ}02 longitude, $37^{\circ}26 latitude). Most of all the characters exhibited wide range of phenotypic variation, of which pod number, seed number, and plant yield showed greater range as compared to other characters. Korean cultivar groups showed greater diversity than the other cultivar groups in seven characters. Correlation analysis showed that days to flowering (DTF) and days to maturity (DTM) had close association with agronomic traits as well as yield and yield components. Both DTF and DTM had positive correlation with the other characters except one hundred seed weight. Stepwise multiple linear regression revealed that seed and pod number were identified as being significant for plant yield. The results in this study indicated wide variation in agronomic traits including DTF and DTM, suggesting the valuable genetic resources in a soybean breeding program.