Soybean and Bees

Erickson (1984) questioned whether there would be a misunderstanding of cleistogamy and
the fact that soybean blossoms are open for only a single day. He mentioned that studies in
controlled environment found that only 33% of `Mitchell’ soybean flowers examined were
completely self-pollinated 3.5 h after the onset of photophase (artificial dawn), but 58% were
self-pollinated 6.5 h after the photophase began. These results suggest that early in the day
soybeans exercise a cross-pollination strategy, which is followed by a self-pollination strategy
later in the day. He proposed that the timing of these strategies might vary with the cultivar’s
relative abundance of pollen and with other factors as well. Nevertheless, he was not
completely sure of his theory and recommended that follow-up field studies were needed to
examine this aspect of floral development under field conditions. The search of literature
after 1984 did not find any study to test Erickson hypothesis.
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