Achievements and trends of soybean breeding and seed growing in the Belgorod State Agricultural University named after Gorin V. Ya

Soybean is a quite new crop in Belgorod region. It was included into the list of crops cultivated in the Belgorod region only in 1992 after the first cultivar Belgorodskaya 48 was released. In the world agriculture soybean takes the first rank on sowing areas and gross yields among grain legumes and oil crops and the first rank on yield per hectare among legume crops. Due to intensive animal farming development soybean became very popular crop as a source of complete vegetable protein in Belgorod region. And from 2000 its production is growing from year to year because of the areas enlargement and yield increase. Sowing areas under soybean have reached 180-200 thousand ha, it is almost 13 % of all crops structure, yield is 15-19 quintal per ha, gross yields are up to 236-248 thousand tones. According to these data our region is a leader among the Russian regions. Today it plays an important role in import substitution. The further production increase of this valuable crop is planned in the region. The Belgorod State Agricultural University named after V. Gorin is the only breeding center that works not only on breeding but also conducts full primary and original seed production.