AMMI Determination of Stability for Oil and Protein Content in Soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill) Seed in Zambia

Aims: The aim of the study was determine the yield and stability of oil and protein content of different genotypes in different locations in Zambia. The specific objectives were to characterize the test soybean genotypes for oil and protein content across selected environments and to understand the environments in Zambia with respect to Soybean quality stability.

Study Design: A Randomised Complete Block Design with four (4) replications at each location was used to carry out the experiment. Each plot had 4 rows of 6 m long each.

Place and Duration of Study: A multi- environment trial was carried out in the 2013/2014 agricultural season in five locations (Golden Valley Agricultural Research Trust (GART), Kabwe, Msekera, Misamfu and Masumba Research stations) spread in the three (3) agro -ecological regions of Zambia.

Methodology: As this study focused on seed variables, protein and oil, seed was collected at harvest and was dried at a moisture content of 13.5%. The field trial had four replications, however for the current study; only two replications were used for analysis due to the inhibiting cost of determining the oil and protein content. Samples of 35 g were collected and analyzed for chemical composition. Protein and oil concentration was determined by Department of Crop Sciences at University of Illinois using a Perten DA7200 Diode Array Near Infrared Reflectance (NIR) analyzer with built in calibration.

Results: Msekera had the highest location mean (18.98%) with regards to oil content among the five locations and GART had the lowest location mean (16.38%). The genotypes were equally significantly different for oil content with Lukanga having the highest across location with an average oil content of 19.47% and TGX 1830-20E as the lowest oil containing genotype with 16.73%. As regards to the Protein content, GART had the highest location mean (38.23%) across all five locations and Misamfu had the lowest location mean (33.47%) Significant differences among genotypes were evident when all fifteen genotypes were considered across the five locations with TGX 1830–20E having the highest genotype mean (37.57%) across locations and Lukanga having the lowest mean (33.1%) for protein content across locations. The genotype G11 (TGX 1989-60F) exhibited the best stability with regards to oil content and the most unstable was G15 (Lukanga).

Conclusion: The study was able to establish the performance of the genotypes across the locations and understand the locations with respect to oil and protein content.