SOYBEAN YIELD AND QUALITY RESPONSE TO FOLIAR FERTILIZATION

Soybean is considered one of the main multipurpose crop and the quality of soybean based products have increasingly received attention. Soybean growers have invested into agronomic practices to maximize production and increase its potential, one of the practices are the usage of foliar fertilizer. In order to quantify the effects of foliar fertilization on soybean seed quality, an experiment was carried out at Research and Development Station for Agriculture Turda, in two consecutive years (2020-2021) and was based on a randomized blocks design with three replications. Seventy-five soybean genotypes from four maturity groups were analyzed. A small influence of foliar fertilization on soybean yield was observed with a slight decrease for the early genotypes when foliar fertilization in both growth and development stages were applied. Regarding the quality, an improvement of the chemical composition of soybean seeds can be reached by applying foliar fertilizers. The results from this study revealed that yields was not increased by treatments applied on soybean growing season.