Research data on the effect of Zeus plant population on final yield Question to be answered with the project? How do different populations (6, 8, 10, and 12 plants per linear meter) affect the productivity of soybean cultivar Zeus? Justification of the work: In the 2020/21 harvest, the months of September and October went through many problems of water stress and many crops presented establishment failures and ended up with low plant stand. Conducting the experiment: Soybeans were sown in this area two days after a 20 mm rainfall with a population of 16 seeds per linear meter. After germination, the plants were thinned in order to leave a stand of 6, 8, 10, and 12 plants per linear meter. For example, in the treatment of 10 plants per linear meter, one plant was left every 10 cm equidistantly and so on. Phytosanitary management was carried out considering the critical levels of pests and diseases and for this, 3 sprays with insecticides and fungicides were applied. On February 15, we came here and harvested the plots. We work with 4 plots for each population tested. Furthermore, we collect 20 plants from each population to determine the yield components. So now, let's look at the results. The soybean had good development and growth, with an average final height of 113 cm. The pod insertion height increased slightly from 13.6 cm to 16 with the increase in the population. The number of reproductive nodes increases from 16.2 to 16.3, 24.3 and 29.2 reproductive nodes per plant... this is because, in the smaller population, the plasticity of the soybean causes it to splinter more, compensating for productivity. The same thing for the number of pods per plant, which goes from an average of 49 pods in the treatment with 12 plants, to 52, 70 and 85 pods per plant in the treatment with 10, 8 and 6 plants per linear meter. Regarding the number of grains per plant, in the treatment with 12 plants, each plant produced an average of 125 grains, while the treatments with 10, 8 and 6 plants produced 141, 200 and 216 grains respectively. The mass of a thousand grains was 200 grams in the treatment with 6 plants and very close to 210 grams in the other treatments. Let's see where all this results, which is the grain productivity 6 Plants = 4524.8 kg ha or 75.4 bags hectare or 182 bags per alqueire 8 Plants = 4584.8 kg ha or 76.4 bags hectare or 185 bags per alqueire 10 Plants = 5084.8 kg ha or 84.7 bags hectare or 205 bags per alqueire 12 Plants = 5878.3 kg ha or 97.8 bags hectare or 237 bags per alqueire The compensation and plasticity potential of the material is fantastic... 75 bags per hectare with 6 plants is impressive... of course this represents well distributed plants... 1 every 16.6 cm and it is different from 6 plants with a distribution problem... 50 cm without plants for example... However, the difference for the treatment with 12 plants was 22.4 bags per hectare, or 54 bags per hectare... which shows us that there is no room for error in the establishment process. Of course, these differences can be greater or lesser, depending on whether you are working with a group of smaller or larger maturation, the sowing season, the soil fertility, but it serves as a parameter to show that even though soybeans have high plasticity, we cannot work with low plant stands. Leave your comment below. Abs