Performance of soybean cultivars according to sowing time in southern Maranhão

Determining the optimal sowing period and selecting soybean cultivars with the greatest yield potential for each production environment are key strategies to increase crop productivity and profitability. This study aimed to assess the influence of sowing date on the agronomic performance of ten soybean cultivars and to identify the most suitable cultivars for each sowing window in the southern region of Maranhão, Brazil. The experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design with a split-plot arrangement and three replications. The main plots consisted of two sowing dates (first season: October 11, 2024; second season: December 4, 2024), whereas the subplots consisted of ten soybean cultivars. The evaluated traits included plant height, first pod insertion height, number of stems per plant, number of pods per plant, number of grains per pod, thousand-grain weight, and grain yield. The results revealed that the expression of the grain yield potential differed between different sowing times and different soybean cultivars. The agronomic performance of soybean was superior when it was sown at time 1 (11/10/2024), and cultivars 77HO111I2X–Guaporé, NK 7777 IPRO and Brasmax Olimpo IPRO presented relatively high grain yields.