Evaluation of Soybean Breeding Lines for Iron Deficiency Chlorosis Resistance in Greenhouse

Soybean IDC is an economically important abiotic disease of soybean and is common in production and often causes severe yield losses. Cultivating IDC resistant varieties is the best management practice to reduce yield loss under severe conditions. Responses to IDC vary in different cultivars and breeding lines. In previous screening at Emerson, differences were observed among breeding lines, however, significant errors were caused by the heterogeneous field/soil conditions. In order to evaluate soybean materials uniformly, greenhouse protocols will be established in this project. Calcareous soil and hydroponic conditions will be set up for screening soybeans at seedling stage. Similar research has been conducted in published reports. The development of a greenhouse screening protocol at Morden will enable rapid and reliable IDC evaluation for early-maturing soybean development in Canada.