Optimizing Sowing Dates for Soybean as a Resilient Strategy to Cope Climate Change

Soybean (Glycine max L.) is an oil seed crop possessing comparatively high percentage of quality protein, oil, carbohydrates and other nutrients. Optimizing sowing dates for soybean is critical for proper onset of flowering, fruit and high yield, especially in regions prone to heat stress. In Pakistan, only the autumn season is recommended for soybean cultivation which is not sufficient to fulfill the local domestic/industrial needs of the country. Similarly, the quality and productivity of soybean is adversely affected when grown in the summer seasons due to the harsh weather conditions, especially in central Punjab. So, the growth and yield performance of soybean need to be evaluate under maximum possible sowing dates to develop a climate resilient strategy to promote soybean cultivation in central Punjab. This study, therefore investigated the performance of soybean variety UAF-Soya01 under ten sowing dates (SD1: 3rd week of July, SD2: 1st week of August, SD3: 3rd week of August, SD4: 1stweek of September, SD5: 3rd week of September, SD6: 1st week of October, SD7: 3rd week of October, SD8: 1st week of November, SD9: 3rd week of November, and SD10: 1st week of December) at the Agronomic Research Area of the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, using Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Data collected various yield related attributes was subjected to R-software for estimation of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Sowing dates significantly affected the performance of the tested variety in terms of plant height(cm), number of pods plant-1, 1000-seed weight(g), seed yield (t ha-1) and biological yield (t ha-1). A moderate to strong positive correlation was observed among seed weight and other yield contributing traits such as plant height, number of pods plant-1, 1000-seed weight, biological yield and harvest index. Our study revealed that soybean sowing in the 1st week of August (SD2) was comparatively better in terms of studied parameters, especially seed yield (2.53 t ha-1), while minimum seed yield (0.55 t ha-1) was observed when crop was sown on 1st week of December (SD10). It was concluded that treatment SD2 (1st week of August) is suitable for climatic conditions of Faisalabad for getting best yield of soybean.