Soybeans for the South

by PAUL R. HENSON

SEVERAL new varieties of soybeans have been developed that strengthen the position of soybeans as an oil crop for industrial use in the South. The new kinds are of wide adaptation, and the southern farmer now has a much better opportunity to select a high-yielding variety suited in his own cropping practices.

And, looking to the future, breeding programs are going forward all over the South. Large numbers of new strains and hybrid lines are being tested, or are under observation at many of the southern experiment stations. Crosses have been made and promising early strains having a high oil content are being selected from crosses between high-yielding, high-oil northern varieties and adapted southern varieties. Several non-shattering hybrid lines that appear to have good yielding ability are under test. Lines resistant to bacterial pustule have been selected from crosses with CNS and other southern varieties. Crosses between high-yielding grain types are expected to bring us productive strains better adapted to the lower Coastal Plain section of the Southeast.

It is not unreasonable to expect that from all this material many new strains will soon be developed, fully capable of meeting the needs of the southern farmer for an oil bean and of overcoming several circumstances that have been handicaps to growing soybeans there: The lack of adapted varieties, the conflict with cotton for labor during the harvest season, and adverse climatic conditions during the late fall and winter.

Two areas produce more than 90 percent of the soybeans grown in the South for industrial use : The Coastal Plain soils of North Carolina and Virginia and the Mississippi Delta sections of Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Only 17.5 percent of the total soybean acreage in the South was harvested for beans during the 10-year period, 1934 to 1943. The average yield then was 11.1 bushels an acre. In 1945, after several better kinds became available, 27.6 percent of the total acreage was harvested for beans, and the average yield, 13.8 bushels an acre, was 24 percent above that from 1934 to 1943.

To meet the demand for more oil during the war and to encourage an expansion of soybean plantings in the South by developing varieties adapted to the section so it, too, could help fill the need, the facilities of the United States Regional Soybean Laboratory at Urbana, Ill., were expanded in 1942 to include 12 Southern States in a cooperative soybean improvement program. Southern headquarters ers for -the region were located at the Delta Branch Experiment Station at Stoneville, Miss.

To achieve the chief aim of the program—the development of adapted higher-yielding sorts for industrial uses—varieties must be developed that not only yield more, but resist shattering, lodging, and diseases, and have a content of oil and protein most desirable for industrial uses. Such new varieties, besides, must fit into the varied rotations and cropping practices characteristic of the different sections of the South. Cotton farmers of the Delta section of Arkansas, Mississippi, and northern Louisiana want a high-yielding variety that will mature in August or early September so they can better use their labor supply. Others want a kind that will mature in September or early October, so that winter grains or alfalfa may be planted after the soybeans are combined. Possibly a somewhat different type is needed in the East and Southeast, where soybeans are often planted after oats or, as in southern Alabama, after early potatoes. The farmers of Oklahoma and Texas want a productive, drought-resistant variety that will develop and mature seed during dry summers. All these factors had to be considered.

The principal varieties that were being grown for beans when the southern soybean program was initiated were Arksoy, Arksoy 2913, Ralsoy, Mamredo, and Macoupin in the central and upper South; Wood's Yellow, Herman, and Tokyo, in the East; and Palmetto, Mamloxi, Clemson, and Nanking in the South and Southeast. Two new strains, Ogden and Volstate, had been developed and released by the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station, but had not been grown to any extent over the South at that time.