Abstract

Akande, S. R., Owolade, O.F. and Ayanwole J.A.

Twenty six newly developed soybean varieties were evaluated for two years at Ilorin in a southern guinea savanna environment of Nigeria. The reaction of the varieties to rust infection was also assessed. Effects due to year, variety and year x variety interaction were significant for all the characters evaluated except for plant height where year x variety interaction had no significant effect. Number of days to 50% flowering ranged from 42 to 47.33. Early flowering varieties included TGX 1903- 8F, TGX 1903-7F and TGX 1904-2F, while late flowering ones were TGX 1924 -1F and TGX 1925-1F. Plant height varied between 25.00 and 44.17 cm. Grain yield ranged from 1017.24 to 2133.01 kg/ha. The best yielding varieties were TGX 1921-23F and TGX 1922-1F. Significantly higher grain yields were obtained in 2005 with an average value of 1602.0 kg/ha compared with 1470.13 kg/ha recorded in 2006. There was no incidence of rust infection in 2005, but in 2006 however, six soybean varieties expressed mild symptoms of the disease.