The prospect of bentazone-tolerant soybean for conventional cultivation

Soybean is one of the most important crops widely used as food, feed, and industrial products. Weeds compete with the crops for light, nutrients, water, space, and other growth requirements, causing an average yield reduction of 37% in soybean. Bentazone is an herbicide that selectively kills broadleaf weeds by inhibiting photosynthesis. It is widespread in soybean-cultivating areas including genetically modified organism (GMO) and GMO-free regions all around the world. This herbicide carries a double-edged sword since it can also incur damage to crops upon application. The challenge, therefore, lies in the deliberate selection of bentazone-tolerant cultivars. We systematically analyzed several factors that affect the metabolism of bentazone in soybean, such as phenotypic and genotypic differences among soybean accessions, the time and method of application, the absorption and metabolism of bentazone in soybean, and the effects of effective application and cultivar selection on yield and crop injury. Furthermore, we recommend that further studies should be done in aid of discovering more tolerant soybean cultivars. We hope that our review will help farmers and soybean producers, as well as geneticists, in developing bentazone-tolerant soybean cultivars to improve the global yield of soybean crops as a response to the ever-dynamic food demand across the globe.