Edamame are large-seeded soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr) harvested as green pods at the R6 stage when the seed are approximately 80 % matured. The demand for Edamame as fresh or frozen vegetable is increasing world wide. Until the beginning our research in 2009 Edamame varieties had not has been tested extensively or developed specifically for production in Egypt.
We have been testing six advanced breeding lines form the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC) in Taiwan for production in Egypt. The study was carried out during 2009 and 2010 seasons in order to determine the genetic performance vegetable soybean genotypes grown in North East region of Delta Egypt.
Results revealed that the studied genotypes significantly differed for all traits studied in each season. Combined analysis variance elucidates that seasons were significant impact for all studied traits except for number of days to flowering, number of seeds per pod and 100 – seed weight. Genotypes X season interaction was significant for all studied traits except for number of days to pods fill, plant height and number of pods per plant. Data of mean performance of six genotypes revealed that genotypes X – 601 possessed that earliest flowering and maturity plants. Whereas, genotype Soja non ogm– 03-19 possessed the latest ones.
Soja non ogm–03-19 showed the highest values for plant height, number of branches per plant and fresh weight of plant. Whereas, Soja non ogm–03-11exhibited the shortest plants and lowest fresh weight of plant and Soja non ogm–03-10 had the lowest branched plants. Results showed that the Soja non ogm–03-16 possessed the highest values for number of pods, seeds per pod and fresh green seed yield / plant. Whereas, the Soja non ogm–03-19 possessed the harvest seed weight. Soja non ogm–03-11 exhibited the lowest values for number of pods and fresh green seed yield per plant. The highest estimates of broad sense heritability (h2) were obtained for days to pods fill, fresh weight of plant, number of pods per plant and number of days to flowering. These results indicated that selection based on mean would be successful in improving the performance through breeding program.