Nov 05, 2009
Embrapa Releases New Soybean Varieties To Be Tested In Mato Grosso
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
The Brazilian agricultural research agency, Embrapa, is expanding its presence in Mato Grosso by opening up new research centers and by joining forces with the Mato Grosso Soybean And Corn Producers Association (Associacao dos Produtores de Soja e Milho de Mato Grosso - Aprosoja/MT) to test new soybean varieties suitable for the state. This week they announced that 26 new soybean varieties would be tested in the state. Eleven varieties are new to the center-west region and 15 varieties are already being grown in other regions of central Brazil. The new soybeans are both GMO and traditional varieties.
A big part of the success of the Brazilian soybean industry in recent years has been the development of what it called tropical soybeans. These soybean varieties are not as sensitive to the changing amount of daylight/darkness as traditional soybean varieties. Soybeans are photoperiodic, which means that the plant's developmental cycles are triggered by varying length of daylight/darkness as the growing season progress. As the amount of daylight/darkness varies by location, different maturity soybeans must be grown. In the U.S. for example, a soybean variety is adapted to an area that is several hundred miles north or south of where it was developed. If you are outside of that range, a different maturity soybean variety must be grown.
Originally, it was believed that soybeans could not be grown near the equator because of the small variation in daylight/darkness throughout the year. Embrapa scientist proved that was not correct by developing soybean varieties that could be grown at low latitudes. The big advantage of these tropical soybeans is that they can be grown over a very wide geographic region. In theory, one soybean variety could be grown over the entire state of Mato Grosso, which is six times larger than the state of Illinois. This reduced sensitivity to the amount of daylight/darkness allows for a very quick adoption of high yielding soybean varieties throughout virtually all of central Brazil.