Soybean germplasms evaluation for acid tidal swamp tolerance using selection index

Availability of fertile land on the island of Java in Indonesia decreases due to the shifting from agricultural land to non-agricultural land. Hence, an extensification of soybean culture to outer Java suboptimal land areas is needed, such as tidal swamp which occupies approximately 20.192 million hectares. The main limitations in this soil are soil acidity, Fe toxicity and excess water. To develop soybean varieties tolerant to acid tidal swamp, tolerant soybean gene resources are needed. Hence, glasshouse and field experiments were carried out to identify tolerant gene resources. The glasshouse experiment has been conducted using 185 genotypes of germplasm at the Indonesian Legume and Tuber Crops Research Institute, Malang, East Java. Selection was carried out by using a selection index method. The glasshouse experiment was followed by field experiment at the Belandean research station, Banjarbaru, South Kalimantan, using the best 17 genotypes selected from the glass­house trial. Results showed that there was variability of response of each genotype to acidity and Fe toxicity. Therefore, assessment of soybean tolerance to acidity and Fe toxicity should be conducted by root growth. Based on selection index criteria, varieties of Lawit and Menyapa served as check tolerant varieties and showed lower growth than the 17 selected genotypes. In the field experiment, genotype MLGG 1087 was identified as the most tolerant and can serve as a gene resource tolerant to acid tidal swamp because it has the highest relative root growth on root dry weight, and the highest average of root and shoot dry weight.