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Soybean is a warm-climate industrial crop, thrives in low- to medium-altitude legume crops. However, its production in Ethiopia lags behind global standards due to limited improved varieties and reliance on narrow genetic base materials, resulting in low productivity. Consequently, an experiment was undertaken to evaluate the genetic variability and associations among traits in various soybean genotypes concerning grain yield and related factors. Forty-nine soybean genotypes were assessed using a simple lattice design with two replications at Assosa Agricultural Research Center during the main cropping season of 2020. The majority of the characteristics displayed positive correlations both at phenotypic and genotypic levels. Seed yield had highly significant and positive correlations, genetically and phenotypically, with the total number of seeds/ plant, number of pods/primary branch per plant, and the weight of a hundred seeds, indicating the potential for concurrent enhancement of grain yields and these associated traits. The total number of seeds/ plant had the greatest genotypic (0.94) and phenotypic (0.51) -+direct influence on seed yield, followed by the number of pods/primary branch per plant and the weight of a hundred seeds, which showed higher genotypic direct effects on seed yield. This suggests that specific emphasis should be placed on these traits for direct selection aimed at improving yield. Moreover, through examinations of genetic diversity, it has been confirmed that there exists significant variability among the evaluated genotypes. This discovery offers valuable insights for future soybean breeding programs. The identification of such variability is crucial as it allows breeders to select and develop soybean varieties with desirable traits, ultimately contributing to the improvement and advancement of soybean varieties.
Fufa et al. (Tue,) studied this question.