Effect of drought stress on yield and quality of eight cultivars of soybean (Glycin max L.) in Sistan region

This study aimed to check the effect of drought stress on yield and quality of eight cultivars of soybean in the Natural Resources and Agriculture Research Farm of Zehak during the crop year 2013-2014. The study was conducted based on a split plot randomized complete bock design with tree iterations. The main plot involved two irrigation levels (control) and drought (water stress in reproductive phase) and the subplots included soybean cultivars PE, HT, V292, Sahar, M7, DPX Katool, M9, and Williams. The results showed that the effect of drought stress on all traits including plant height, pod length, number of pods per plant, canopy temperature, grain weight, quantum yield, and grain yield were significant. On the other hand, the number of seeds per pod and harvest index were not significantly affected by draught stress. The effect of cultivar was also significant on all qualitative and quantitative traits so that the highest grain yield was obtained from PE while its impact on phonological traits, pod length, and canopy temperature was not significant. The interaction of draught stress on plant height, number of pods per plant, quantum yield, seed yield, and the rest of the properties under study was not significant. The highest grain yield was observed in full irrigation (control) and PE cultivar.