Breaking Soybean Yield Barriers: Report of the first year of experimentation at Kansas - USA (Irrigated and Dryland)

Two soybean research trials were conducted near Scandia, KS, in both dryland and irrigated environments. The objective of this research was to study the contribution of different farming practices for developing efficient and high-yielding soybean production systems. Each experiments had five treatments: farmer practices (FP), comprehensive fertilization (CF), production intensity (PI), ecological intensification (EI = CF+PI) and advanced plus (AD). Under dryland, FP and CF treatments each yielded 34 bu/A, differing on average 27 bu/A compared with the PI, EI, and AD scenarios. Under irrigation, FP and CF presented comparable yield levels, but differed on average 35 bu/A compared with the intensified treatments (PI, EI, and AD).