Critical water content and water stress coefficient of soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) under deficit irrigation

The objective of this research was to investigate the critical water content (θ _c) and water stress coefficient (K _s) of soybean plant under deficit irrigation. This research was conducted in a plastic house at the University of Lampung, Sumatra in Indonesia from June to September 2000. The water deficit levels were 0–20%, 20–40%, 40–60%, 60–80%, and 80–100% of available water (AW) deficit, arranged in Randomized Completely Block (RCB) design with four replications. The results showed that the soybean plant started to experience stress from week IV within 40–60% of AW deficit. The fraction of total available water (TAW) that the crop can extract from the root zone without suffering water stress (p) was 0.5 and θ_c was 0.305 m³ m⁻³. The values of K _s at p=0.5 were 0.78, 0.86, 0.78, and 0.71 from week IV to week VII, respectively. The optimum yield of soybean plant with the highest yield efficiency was reached at 40–60% of AW deficit with an average K _s value of 0.78; this level of deficit irrigation could conserve about 10% of the irrigation. The optimum yield of soybean plant was 7.9 g/pot and crop water requirement was 372 mm.