The Team from Guangzhou University Reviewed the Mechanisms of Key Agronomic Traits in Soybean and Their Breeding Significance
Published:10 Oct.2023 Source:BioArt Plant
Soybean is a short-day crop, and photoperiodic control of flowering time is a major factor determining its planting latitude range and yield potential. In addition, compared with other major crops, soybean has a unique plant structure with pods developing from nodes and a specialized symbiotic nitrogen fixation system. Therefore, photoperiodic regulation of flowering, plant architecture, and symbiotic nitrogen fixation are three major factors affecting soybean yield and need to be considered as priorities in breeding.
Recently, the team of Fanjiang Kong and Baohui Liu from Guangzhou University published a review in the Journal of Genetics and Genomics, in which they systematically elucidated the molecular mechanisms of photoperiod, plant type and symbiotic nitrogen fixation that regulate soybean yield, and discussed the significance of these mechanisms for molecular breeding of soybean.
The study first outlines how photoperiod determines the genetic basis of soybean adaptation to different latitudes by affecting flowering time, then discusses the key genes controlling soybean plant shape, and finally elucidates the importance of symbiotic nitrogen fixation on soybean yield. This study provides a theoretical basis for the use of molecular marker-assisted selection breeding to improve soybean yield.