Agronomic Traits of a New Soybean Germplasm with Higher Ratio of Four-seeded Pods

The number of four-seeded pods is a plant trait that is of great interest in terms of increasing soybean production. The objective of this study was to understand the agronomic characteristics of four-seeded pods of FS1159, which contain a significantly higher ratio of four-seeded pods than do other genotypes. FS1159 showed a significantly lower ratio of one and two-seeded pods and a significantly higher ratio of three- (39.6%) and four- (11.3%) seeded pods than did the four check soybeans. The average values of the traits of FS1159 in this study were: plant height, 58.1 cm; the number of nodes, 15.7; the number of branches, 6.5; and 100-seed weight, 20.3 g. These results indicate that FS1159 can be used as a new genetic resource to explore the traits of four-seeded-pod and improve the soybean yield.