Abstract

Sequel to the impediment of terminal drought in limiting the enormous potential of soybean, the research was conducted to determine the grain yield potential of earlymaturing breeding lines of soybean prior to their release and evaluated the genetic variability among the breeding lines for further improvement. In this regard, fourteen early-maturing varieties, along with two checks were evaluated in the late rainy season of 2018 at Teaching and Research and Farm of Kwara State University, Nigeria. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design in three replications. Data were collected on seed morphology, plant growth and yield characters and subjected to analysis of variance at (P<0.05). Boxplot was used to depict the spread of the measured traits while dendrogram showed (dis)similarities among the soybean varieties with the aid of Stata statistical tool. The results revealed that there was basis for selection among the early-maturing soybean varieties as a result of wide variability in their morphological and agronomic traits. Genetic variability in flowering time and grain yield, makes development for extra early genotypes plausible. Most of the early-maturing soybean varieties were dissimilar to local check, that was also distantly related to improved check. TGX 2007-1F, TGX 2007-4F and improved check were high yielding and can ameliorate food and nutritional insecurity resulting from climate change induced terminal drought.