Genetic variability for traits related to cooking time in soybean
Deonisio Destro; Henrique Stoco Bizeti; Mario Marega Filho; Lizz Kezzy de Morais; Cláudia Tróia and Ricardo Montalván
Long cooking time for soybean seeds hinders their regular ‘in natura’ use as a rich source of protein. The objective of this research was to study the genetic variability of cooking time in soybean and its correlation with seed weight and imbibition percent. Pure food-type soybean lines were assessed having been cultivated in a greenhouse (experiment 1) and pure lines derived from crosses between grain type and food type soybean cultivars cropped in the field (experiment 2). In experiment 1, wide variability was detected in all the traits and the cooking time varied from 26 minutes to 170 minutes. In experiment 2 the range of cooking time was less (63 to 124 minutes). The most pronounced correlations were between imbibition percent and cooking time (-0.41*) for experiment 1 and between seed weight before and after imbibition with cooking time (0.42 and 0.41*) for experiment 2. The results showed substantial genetic variability in soybean cooking time. This can be used to obtain cultivars for human consumption with important decreases in cooking time.