Soybeans: growing features, harvesting, proper planting and care

General Information and Benefits of Soybeans

Soybean is one of the most popular crops preferred by plant growers. This legume family plant has many advantages, including the following:

1. High yield.
2. Ability to grow on any type of soil except sandy.
3. Soybean fruits contain large quantities of vegetable protein.

Soybeans are in high demand, despite the fact that their cost exceeds the cost of wheat, since they are less susceptible to price increases. Soybeans and its processed products are becoming increasingly in demand, in parallel with the growth in poultry production and the development of livestock and pig farming, because growing soybeans profitably is a highly profitable business. But, like any other direction in business, soybean cultivation has certain features that cannot be ignored.

Application and use of soy in the food industry.

Applications of soybeans

The uses of soy are very diverse:

1. Various dishes are prepared from soybean fruits.
2. Soy is used by food manufacturers - it is included in protein products for vegetarians, cheeses, sausages, cutlets, soups and others.
3. It is an excellent food that farm animals adore.
4. Soybean seeds are used to prepare soy flour, which is used to produce soy meat.
5. Soybean seeds are used to produce soybean oil, which is recognized as the best vegetable oil.
6. Soy milk is made from white soybean seeds.
7. Fermented soybeans are used to prepare soy liquid sauce.
8. Pressed beans are used to produce soybean meal.

What products are made from soybeans

Soybeans are rich in protein, making them often used as an inexpensive substitute for meat and dairy products. This not only reduces the cost of the product, but also makes it possible for people who do not eat meat, do not digest lactose, or are on a diet to consume it.

Products made from soybeans:

1. Oil. This is a universal product that is used not only for food, but also for industrial purposes (some paints and olive oil are made from it). Soybean oil is consumed exclusively in refined form, as it has a specific fishy smell.
2. Milk is an alternative to cow's milk. It is indicated for people with liver, kidney, stomach diseases, and those suffering from lactose or milk protein intolerance.
3. Tofu. What is this bean curd made from? The product is obtained from soy milk by adding a special mushroom culture. Tofu replaces meat in Chinese cuisine. The Chinese call it "boneless meat." The product is recommended for use for gastritis, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and is used by athletes to build muscle mass.
4. Cocoa is an inexpensive and healthy drink that restores energy.
5. Meat is an analogue of regular meat, filled with protein, is easily digestible and lowers cholesterol. The product is made from soy flour, water, and food additives.
6. Sauce. A favorite product in many countries. It is made by fermenting soybeans under the influence of fungi. Making soy sauce is a complex technological process that takes from 6 months to 2 years.
7. Miso. The product is a fermented soybean paste. Miso is used in Japanese cuisine.

Conditions for good growth and development of soybeans

If conditions are favorable, soybeans will produce the first shoots already on the 6-9th day after sowing. When the seeds are filled, the soybean stops growing, and when the beans ripen, the plant sheds its leaves. Most soybean varieties are distinguished by the fact that their ripened beans do not crack and the plants do not lie down, making harvesting easier.

By a strange coincidence, a fairly common opinion is that soybeans are considered an unpretentious plant. It's not like that at all. Soybean is a light-loving and heat-demanding crop.

If you grow soybeans in insufficient light, its stems begin to lengthen, the leaf cuttings become longer, and this prevents the formation of side shoots and fruits, leading to the fall of the ovaries that were previously formed by the plant in their lower parts.

Soybean requires heat most during the flowering phases and when fruits are formed. The optimal air temperature during these periods of time should be +21-22°C. If the air temperature drops to +14°C or lower, plants stop growing and developing.

Rules for the favorable cultivation and development of soybeans.

As the growing season begins and ends, plants require less heat. In addition, it is during this period that soybeans can withstand frost relatively easily (when the air temperature drops to –2-3.5°C.

But it’s not only light and heat that soybeans need for normal development. This legume requires a large amount of moisture, however, this parameter is also affected by the growth period.

During the initial growth period, before the flowers appear, soybean is a relatively drought-tolerant crop. But lack of moisture can have a negative impact on plant productivity; the lower beans will develop worse.

And if you do not provide a sufficient amount of moisture during the period when the soybeans bloom, form ovaries and plant seeds, do not expect to get a large harvest.

When intensive development of green mass occurs, the plant area from which moisture evaporates becomes larger, therefore, when soybeans begin to bloom, the need for a large amount of moisture increases.

When the flowering period begins and beans form, the plant is not only demanding of watering - it needs moist air. If the air is low in humidity and closer to dry during the flowering and formation of soybean fruits, new flowers and beans will not appear, but, on the contrary, the plant will shed those that have already formed.

Development and maturation of soybeans.

Experts recommend sowing soybeans in fields that are cleared of weeds and have optimal reserves of nutrients and moisture. Do not forget that in order to get a good harvest, this plant must receive everything it needs: regular and abundant watering, as well as nutrients, the amount of which should be 2-3 times higher than the amount of nutrients needed by grain crops.

This means that the soil on which soybeans will be grown must be made fertile and cultivated, otherwise you will face additional and considerable financial costs for purchasing the necessary fertilizers in large quantities.

Soybean has no preference for soil types, but neutral or slightly acidic soil is considered ideal, the pH of which is in the range of 5.5-6.5, well-permeable to water, and containing large amounts of phosphorus, humus and calcium.

Fields and regions favorable for growing soybeans

Soybean, like all leguminous plants, is considered a valuable crop in crop rotation. It is sown in fields where grain crops were grown before it (in fields with winter wheat). It grows well after corn, sugar beets, potatoes, and perennial cereal grasses.

Fields that were previously sown with other leguminous crops, perennial leguminous grasses, cabbage crops and sunflowers are considered unsuitable, since these plants can spread bacteriosis and other diseases.

Some crops are susceptible to sclerotinia disease (including rapeseed, soybean and sunflower), so their crop rotation should not exceed 33%.

After harvesting the soybeans, the fields where it was grown can be sown with winter wheat. Other grain crops, corn, rapeseed, forage and vegetable crops are also suitable for this.

Due to the late harvesting of crops, which is typical for some regions of our Russia, it is not possible to grow winter crops after soybeans.

After growing soybeans, the soil becomes poor in nutrients, so be sure to keep in mind that you should not sow this crop in the same place until after a couple of years. For this reason, those who grow soybeans have to regularly look for new planting area every year.

In regions that are suitable for growing soybeans, it is necessary to choose the right varieties for sowing this crop. The Krasnodar Territory and the Far East (in the Amur Region, Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories) have a larger number of cultivated areas - more than 80%. The main soybean varieties are grown here, including Venus, Primorskaya and others.

The Middle Volga region is also suitable for growing soybean varieties Soer from 1 to 7.

In the central zone of our country, soybeans of early and mid-ripening varieties are sown: Belgorodskaya, Svetla, Luchezarnaya.

The following soybean varieties are the fastest ripening and produce the highest yields: Belor, Okskaya, Mageva.

The North Caucasus has created the most favorable conditions for the growth and development of soybeans, so in this region the yield indicator is 40-45 centners per hectare.

In the regions of Primorye and central Russia it is not possible to provide soybeans with optimal conditions, so the yield value is much less - 20 centners per hectare.

The Ural regions with a drier climate are characterized by even lower yields - no more than 15 centners per hectare. In these regions, wheat produces approximately the same yields as wheat. Considering that soybeans contain three times more protein than wheat, growing soybeans is more profitable.

Place of soybeans in crop rotation

For soybeans, the best predecessors are winter and spring grains and corn.

Precursors such as sugar beets and potatoes are considered good. You can sow soybeans in the same field for 2-3 years. It is not recommended to sow soybeans after crops that have common diseases, such as sclerotinia, such as sunflower and cruciferous vegetables. But soybean is an excellent predecessor for other crops, because it leaves behind 70-100 kg/ha of available nitrogen in the soil.

Therefore, for example, after soybeans, it is recommended to place corn for grain, which in this case gives a 15% increase in yield.

Differences in soybean varieties

There are different varieties of soybeans that require different agroclimatic and natural conditions for their cultivation, and also have different purposes.

Proper care, planting and growing soybeans will certainly bear fruit as a rich harvest..

Some varieties of this crop are grown for use in the oilseed and feed industry or in the food industry, which is focused on the production of soybean proteins.

In addition, soybean varieties differ in the following parameters:

1. Purchase price;
2. Composition;
3. The ratio of the main components of the grain;
4. Productivity.

On the territory of our country, the cultivation of genetically modified soybeans is prohibited, which is widespread in foreign countries, since it is not a demanding crop and is cheaper than regular soybeans.

Composition and history

The chemical composition of soybeans is rich in vitamins and minerals. 100 grams of seeds contain:

• calcium - 0.35 g;
• potassium - 1.6 g;
• magnesium - 0.23 g;
• phosphorus - 0.6 g;
• sulfur - 0.25 g;
• chlorine - 0.06 g
• zinc - 2 mcg;
• nickel - 314 mcg;
• silicon - 0.18 g.

In addition, it also contains B vitamins, vitamin PP, A, E. However, this is not even what is important in soybeans. The high yield of this crop, and most importantly the increased protein content, explain the love for this plant since time immemorial.

According to scientists, soybean began to be cultivated as a cultivated plant no later than the 10th–11th centuries BC. China is considered the birthplace of this culture. In later times, it came to the territory of Korea and Japan, and only towards the end of the 17th century it began to be grown in Europe, and from the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th - in America.

In addition, soybeans turned out to be a very convenient material for modification at the genetic level. The transnational concern Monsanto, which produces genetically modified crops on the market, first introduced its products in 1996. And these were precisely soybean seeds. Since then, work on creating genetically modified soybeans has continued to this day.

Proper soil preparation for soybeans

First, in the autumn season, you need to carry out a couple of peelings, the depth of which should be about 10 cm, and apply fertilizers for plowing.

If this field was previously used for growing grain crops, then fertilizers should be applied to the soil to a depth of 22-25 cm, and if for growing corn, the depth should be 25-30 cm.

When early spring arrives, it is necessary to harrow the soil using heavy, medium or light harrows across or at an angle to the direction of plowing.

It cannot be said that the pre-sowing cultivation of a field for soybeans has many differences from the cultivation of fields for planting other leguminous plants - they are similar.

The main purpose of processing is to remove weeds from the field and retain the necessary moisture in it.

If you did not have time to level the field in the fall, which was overgrown with weeds and carrion, if the past winter was long and cold, then when spring comes, it is necessary to cultivate the field to a depth of 6-8 cm and then roll it down.

Carrying out this work helps to increase the temperature of the seed layer by two degrees and stimulates the germination of weeds, which can then be easily removed.

Pre-sowing cultivation, which is carried out to a depth of up to 5 cm across or at an angle towards previous cultivation, requires the use of steam or beet cultivators with flat-cut tines.

The field prepared for sowing is made as level as possible, each lump of earth is broken up. This is necessary because the location of the soybeans is quite low, and if the surface is uneven, harvesting is difficult. The ridges should not exceed 4 cm, and the furrows should also be no more than 4 cm deep.

Description of the plant

Soybeans are heat-loving plants. For its good growth, it needs warm days and nights without frost. The plant grows most actively at daytime temperatures of +32 degrees and at night temperatures of +22 degrees. The daylight hours should be 12 hours. The culture is high-yielding.

The average height of the plant is 0.6-1 meter. It has trifoliate leaves, which fall off after the crop ripens. Soybean blooms with small flowers collected in inflorescences - racemes; insects are weakly attracted due to the lack of a strong smell. The length of the fruits does not exceed 6 cm, they contain a maximum of 4 beans, usually 2-3. The seeds are greenish or yellow in color.

Fertilizing the soil after sowing soybeans

After sowing, before the emergence of seedlings, it is necessary to add herbicides to the soil using harrowing, the minimum depth of which should be 3 cm. Ring-spur rollers can also be used to increase the efficiency of nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

If the appearance of rhizomatous and coniferous weeds is noticed on the field, then pre-sowing treatment is not carried out, since they wait until the wheatgrass grows to 10-15 cm, and then sow.

When 3-4 days have passed after sowing, when soybean shoots have not yet appeared, the field must be treated using a continuous action herbicide “Roundup”. Fertilizers are consumed in the following quantities:

1. Nitrogen – from 10 to 20 kg per hectare;
2. Phosphorus – 15-30 kg per hectare;
3. Potassium – 25-60 kg per hectare.

Tillage

Soybeans generate the highest yields by plowing the soil in the fall to a depth of at least 20 cm. Spring plowing or surface tillage reduces the yield by 20-30%, as calculated by VNIIMK.

After early harvested crops, semi-fallow tillage is used, after late predecessors, improved plowing is used (1-2 stubble peelings and plowing in September-October at a depth of 20-22 cm).

If the fields are clogged with root shoot weeds (sow thistle, thistle, field bindweed), peeling is carried out to 14-15 cm immediately after harvesting the grain, then glyphosate herbicides are applied to the weed seedlings and after 12-15 days deep plowing is carried out to 30-32 centimeters.

In autumn, phosphorus fertilizers can be applied before plowing - at a dose of 40-60 kg of active substance per hectare. However, fertilizer is needed only if the topsoil contains less than 15 mg of the element per 1 kg of dry soil.

In general, all fertilizers are applied based on the results of soil diagnostics. If soybean is included in the crop rotation after wheat, then the remaining nutrition in the soil may be enough for it. It is not recommended to apply nitrogen fertilizers so as not to inhibit nodule bacteria.

Before sowing, in the spring, 1-2 cultivations are carried out as weeds emerge when the soil is physically ripe (when it crumbles well and does not stick to the cultivation tools).

Preparing soybean seeds before sowing

Before sowing soybeans, it is necessary to prepare not only the field, but also the seeds themselves. The seeds are treated, and before the sowing process they are inoculated using nodule bacteria (rizotorphin).

Inoculating soybean seeds is impossible with conventional dressing machines, since rhizotorphin consists of fairly large particles that cannot pass through the nozzle and filter of conventional machines, and if rhizotorphin is used in liquid form, this is difficult to do.

Some farmers use concrete mixers for inoculation, others use the back of a truck and then break up the resulting lumps in a seeder. The working solution is consumed in the amount of 70-80 liters per ton.

Not all farmers use rhizotorphin. Instead, ammonium nitrate is added to the soil. This method increases the cost of production, however, it ensures a high yield.

Soybean planting process

Soybeans are sown in the second half of April (usually the third ten days of the month) or the first and second ten days of May, when the soil warms up to 10-15°C.

First, late-ripening varieties are sown, and then early-ripening ones. The sowing depth of soybean seeds should be 450-700 mm. It is necessary to leave a distance of 0.4-0.6 meters between the rows.

The following parameters influence the crop seeding rate:

1. Plant variety;
2. Sowing method;
3. A method of weed control.

The average sowing density is 35 to 40 seeds per meter. If the row spacing is increased, the sowing rate is increased by 10-20%.

Caring for crops after emergence

As soon as the first shoots appear, you need to constantly weed, destroy weeds, and also loosen the rows.

When 5-6 true leaves appear, it is time for the soybean to bloom. During this period, it is necessary to add nitrophoska (mineral nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium fertilizer) to the soil. Then the soil is watered abundantly and backfilled with soil.

Watering and fertilizing the plant during the development of soybean seedlings.

The ripening of soybean fruits occurs at different times, ranging from 85 days to 245. The ripening period is influenced by the crop variety and the climatic conditions of the region in which it is grown. Ripening of early soybean varieties occurs at the end of July, and late varieties - by the beginning of October.

Harvesting and storage

Agronomists recommend harvesting in September, when the humidity level reaches 14%. Under such weather conditions, the fruits are easy to process. It is important to mow in a timely manner, since the pods dry out and open in just a few days.

After harvesting, the beans are laid out in an area that is well lit by sunlight. This allows you to quickly dry the fruits and ventilate them. After the harvest dries, it is collected in bags and sent for storage in arches.

Storing Soybeans

Soybeans are stored in ordinary arches. The main condition for storage is the humidity parameter - it should not exceed 15% (the optimal humidity value is 12%). If soybean fruits are too wet, they are dried, for which special equipment is used, drying on which is considered a rather expensive process, many times increasing the cost of the finished product.

The following main indicators influence soybean yield:

1. The region in which the crop is grown;
2. Soybean variety;
3. Weather.

If you do not water the crop, the average yield will be 10 centners per hectare, and if timely and sufficient watering is provided to the soybean, the yield increases to 25 centners per hectare.

Early soybean varieties have the highest yield, regardless of the region of growth. Experienced farmers have long known that sowing and growing soybeans is not a very complicated process. It is much more difficult to collect the resulting harvests. Soybeans are harvested using combines.

The soybean harvest must be harvested in a short time (some varieties of crops require this to be done in 3-5 days). Otherwise, the beans begin to crack and fall to the ground. However, even with a sufficient amount of equipment necessary for harvesting, it is not easy to manage to remove it in such a short time.

Theoretically, the productivity of one combine harvester per day is to harvest a maximum of 20 hectares, and that is provided that the field has been properly cultivated and weeds do not grow on it.

In practice, the productivity of the equipment is much less - cleaning a maximum of 5 hectares per day. In this case, crop losses are significant. When harvesting, carefully ensure that plant stems do not fall into the combine drum - the machine may break.

Harvesting

The ideal grain moisture content for harvesting is 13-14%; at this level, it is minimally injured and easily processed. Wetter raw materials have higher reject rates during harvesting and also require proper drying. It is important not to delay mowing, since literally within two days the pods will dry out, open, and the seeds will fall off. In the fields, soybeans are harvested using conventional direct harvesting, and in the garden by hand.

Ripening time

After 100-150 days from the moment of sowing (depending on the variety), harvesting begins. Early-ripening varieties are harvested in mid-August, late-ripening varieties in the second or third decade of September. Full ripeness of soybeans occurs when the leaves of the plant fall off, the stems and beans turn brown, the pods are easily separated, and the seeds are well separated.

Soybean yield per 1 ha

In central Russia, early-ripening varieties have the highest yields, where without irrigation they harvest an average of 10 centners of soybeans per hectare, and with timely and sufficient irrigation of fields - up to 25 centners per hectare. In the south, the yield per hectare reaches 50 centners, in the north - 10 centners.