Because soybeans can remobilize nutrients from lower to newly developing nodes, more information is needed to understand which nutrients and in what quantities are made available to new nodes. This project uses tissue testing to gain these insights and help establish more accurate and timely in-season nutrient recommendations to maximize soybean yield.

• Currently, in-season soybean tissue testing involves targeting the most-recently opened trifoliate. This may not accurately determine the plant’s nutrient needs to guide in-season nutrient application decisions. This is because lower nodes on a soybean plant start to remobilize nutrients to developing pods at the same time new nodes and leaves are still emerging at the top of the plant.
• It is also unclear if different nutrients remobilize at the same rates.

• Knowledge gained will give farmers a more thorough understanding of how soybean plants accumulate and remobilize nutrients from their leaves. It can serve as a timeline of soybean nutrient uptake and remobilization that informs when, where and at what rate different nutrients cycle through the soybean growth stages.
• Insights from this research will help farmers know when and where on the plants to take tissue samples to more accurately assess the nutritional needs of their soybean crop and design a nutrient management plan better aligned to the nutritional needs throughout the soybean growth stages.

• Dr. Connor Sible, Research Assistant Professor, UIUC
• Dr. Fred Below, Professor, UIUC
• Juliann Seebauer, Principal Research Specialist, UIUC
• Jared Fender, Senior Research Specialist, UIUC
• Gabriela Frigo Fernandes, Master’s Student, UIUC

• Urbana

Dr. Connor Sible
Research Assistant Professor
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
815-904-4391
sible2@illinios.edu

Dr. Fred Below
Professor
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
217-333-9745
fbelow@illinois.edu