Abstract
At each of several seed farms located at various hight of elevation of 80 to 1350 meters on the foot of Mt. Fuji and on the side of Mt. Yatsugatake, soybean seeds of two varieties were raised and their productive predispositions were examined. The results of studies for three years, 1951 to 1953, were as follows : 1. The size of the seed produced varied according to the farm within each variety. The differences were proved, however, due chiefly to the difference in the edaphitic conditions rather than in the climatic conditions among those farms. 2. The higher the farms were located, the earlier the plants bloomed and matured, and the less were the amounts of fat contained in the seeds produced. No cumulative nature in such effects were noticed. 3. Growth of the plants raised from larger seeds was generally better than that from smaller ones in the same variety in earlier stages. But as the growth proceeded, the differences diminished gradually and became very little on harvest. 4. Differences in the progeny growth and yielding ability of the seeds due to the differences in the elevation, where they were raised, were small when they were selected for an equal size. The seeds produced on barren soils or at localities where plant diseases prevailed showed lower productivity regardless the size 5. It was concluded that to adopt localities as free as possible from plant diseases or noxious insects should be indispensable for producing superior seeds of soybean, and that, out of those seeds, larger sized ones within every variety should be selected for planting to expect more abundant yields.
