Soybean production is enhanced by animal pollination

CHACOFF, NATACHA P. ; ZARBÁ, L. ; ARAGÓN, R; CARRASCO, J.

Mar del Plata

Congreso; Cuarto Congreso Internacional de Servicios Ecosistémicos en los Neotrópicos: de la investigación a la acción; 2015

INTA, GEAP, Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganaderia y Pesca de la Nacion

Crop pollination is an ecosystem service that depends on biodiversity. Soybean (Glicine max, Fabaceae) is one of the major commodities for many exporter countries and the area planted worldwide is increasing. According to the literature, soybean is benefited by animal pollination, although self-pollination can produce seeds. Our objective was to assess how much different widely used varieties of soybean are benefited by insect pollination. To this end we planted seeds on pods from four different varieties of soybean (DM8576, NA8009, RA844, SPS 7x3). For each variety we planted 14 seeds (one per plant pod) and half of them were bagged to prevent insects to visits the flowers. After pollination we counted how many pods and seeds have the bagged plants and compared with plants that were left open to receive visits from pollinators. Plants that were exposed to pollinators produce on average more seeds than those bagged (127 vs. 83 seeds/plant) and this was because plants produced more pods (55 vs 38 pods/plants). Insect pollination doubled the production in one variety (DM8576) and increased between 23 to 63% in the others varieties. Insect pollinations seem to have a non-negligible effect on soybean production.