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Book of Abstracts First Legume Society Conference 2013: A Legume Odyssey Novi Sad, Serbia, 9-11 May 2013
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Challenges for soya bean (Glycine max) production in Northern Europe
Fredrik Fogelberg 1 , Charlotte Lagerberg Fogelberg 2
1 JTI – Swedish Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, Uppsala, Sweden
2 Ideon Agro Food, Lund, Sweden
Although, pioneer researchers in the Nordic-Baltic countries tried to cultivate soya beans as early
as in the 1940’s, this crop never became any success. In the early 2000’s scientist, seed companies
and farmers in Northern Europe restarted the process to introduce soya beans as a part of the
modern cropping system. In a recent Swedish field experiment study 2010-2012, we have
investigated some of the factors that influence plant development and yield. It is clear that soya
beans can be cropped in Sweden even at latitudes as far north as 59 ° (Stockholm region). The
marketable yield is typical 2 metric tonnes per hectare. Row distance tend to influence yield in
some cases, but it not clear if the investigated row distances (12,5; 25 and 50 cm) are connected
to other factors such as seed cultivar or seeding date. One hypothesis is that increased row
distance will give a warmer stand, hence an earlier maturity, especially if the rows are seeded in a
north-south direction. Seeding date has proven to be quite flexible; from early May to early June.
Some cultivars benefits from early seeding while others are more plastic, they will regardless of
seeding date result in about same yield. Our experience is that selection of cultivar is the most
crucial factor for success in Northern Europe. Triple-zero (000) varieties should be used.
However, we experience that some of the 000-varieties on the market behave quite different in
Scandinavian latitudes compared to Central Europe or Canada.
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