Dynamics of biochemical composition of soybean cotyledons in the southern steppe of the Western Siberia

Soybean belongs to dicotyledonous group of plants. Soybean cotyledons serve a dual function: on the one hand, they are the storage organs of the seed, on the other, when seeds germinating cotyledons are photosynthetic organs. The aim of our studies was to follow the dynamics of biochemical composition and dry biomass of soybean cotyledons after seed emergence and during plant growth in natural weather conditions. The object of this study was soybean varieties Eldorado and SibNIIK 315. We conducted our experiment in small field trials of the laboratory of legumes breeding of the Siberian research institute of agriculture (Omsk) in 2013-2015. During growth and development of plants, we observed the decrease of total nitrogen content to 14.38% by the phase of the first trifoliate leaf, crude fat - to 10.18% in relation to the same traits in seeds before sowing, as well as the share of dry biomass of cotyledons to 13.14% of their total mass. Both total nitrogen and crude fat contents in the cotyledons decreased while increasing precipitation amount (r = -0...