Species
+

Glycine max (L.) Merr.

Soojabuan, Soya-Bean, Soyabean, Soybean

Climate known 74 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean. Soy is a staple crop, the world's most grown legume, and an important animal feed.

Text from Wikipedia, “Soybean”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Glycine

Glycine (symbol Gly or G; ) is an organic compound with the formula C2H5NO2, and is the simplest stable amino acid, distinguished by having a single hydrogen atom as its side chain. As one of the 20 proteinogenic amino acids, glycine is a fundamental building block of proteins in all life and is encoded by all codons starting with GG (GGU, GGC, GGA, and GGG). Because of its minimal side chain, it is the only common amino acid that is not chiral, meaning it is superimposable on its mirror image.

Text from Wikipedia, “Glycine”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Fabaceae
Described by
(L.) Merr.
Native to
Amur, Khabarovsk, Primorye +13
Wild records
766 in range· 549 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Aug, mean day; nights 22 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1265mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 246 mm (CHELSA)
Light
15–36DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to September in the northern hemisphere (May to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1265 mm a year, wettest July at 246 mm, driest December at 28 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -4.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Dolichos sofa L.; Glycine angustifolia Miq.; Glycine formosa Hosok.; Glycine javanica Thunb.; Glycine mas and 4 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to September in the northern hemisphere (May to September at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (909 mm of 1265 mm) falls in May to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 21.9 °C against a yearly mean of 13.0 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to March.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1265 mm a year, wettest July at 246 mm, driest December at 28 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1265 mm a year at the habitat, 909 mm of it May to September. Wettest month July at 246 mm, driest December at 28 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 581 mm to 2313 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 36 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 11, the highest 90th-percentile month 38).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -4.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -4.4 °C, the absolute minimum -7.9 °C, about 54 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 26.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -4.7 °C in January (across the envelope cells -19.0 °C to 5.5 °C), warmest day 28.0 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -4.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 66% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 3 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Aug; mean night from -5 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1265 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 703 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -7.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 26.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost26.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-7.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 15–36RH 56–66 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 703 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C3 / -8–115 / -4–1210 / 4–1616 / 12–2321 / 18–2725 / 22–2927 / 25–3128 / 25–3024 / 20–2719 / 13–2312 / 3–196 / -5–14
Night °C-5 / -19–6-3 / -15–61 / -7–97 / 2–1412 / 8–1817 / 14–2221 / 17–2522 / 17–2517 / 11–2210 / 3–173 / -7–12-2 / -15–8
Rain mm31 / 5–9137 / 6–11459 / 15–15985 / 27–167110 / 50–234160 / 84–306246 / 143–410224 / 125–349169 / 55–25762 / 28–18854 / 13–11928 / 7–76
DLI17 / 14–1922 / 19–2429 / 23–3034 / 29–3636 / 31–3835 / 29–3831 / 27–3530 / 28–3427 / 24–2923 / 19–2517 / 14–1915 / 11–17
RH %57 / 53–6556 / 52–6457 / 50–6357 / 48–6359 / 50–6562 / 55–6866 / 61–7065 / 61–6862 / 57–6658 / 54–6357 / 54–6257 / 53–63

Each figure is the median across the 703 grid cells holding the 746 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1095:6380 (35.225, 139.025). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -7.9 °C, 1st-percentile night -4.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 26.5 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 703 distinct grid cells holding the 746 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1095:6380 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 35.00_138.750, lapse-corrected +676 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 907 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeAmur, Khabarovsk, Primorye, China South-Central, Hainan, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, Qinghai, China Southeast, Tibet, Xinjiang, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan· introduced: Great Britain, Ireland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Belarus, Baltic States, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, South European Russia, Ukraine, Benin, Guinea, Cameroon, Congo, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Buryatiya, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan, Turkmenistan, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iraq, Mongolia, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Himalaya, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Jawa, Philippines, New Guinea, Queensland, New Caledonia, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Vermont, Alabama, Maryland, Honduras, Cayman Is., Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Colombia, Ecuador, Galápagos
Kew's description“scrambling annual or perennial” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker36.587, 127.426 · in the densest population, 203 records (27% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 766 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 549 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 27 km away. 515 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 20 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 766 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

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Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (5); (c) WATANABE Hitoshi 渡辺仁, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Glycine max, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Genome sequence of the palaeopolyploid soybean
Jeremy Schmutz, Steven B. Cannon, Jessica A. Schlueter, Jianxin Ma (2010) · Nature
Stage of Development Descriptions for Soybeans, Glycine Max (L.) Merrill 1
W. R. Fehr, C. E. Caviness, Dwayne Thomas Burmood, J. S. Pennington (1971) · Crop Science
Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration Rates by Tillage and Crop Rotation
Tristram O. West, W. M. Post (2002) · Soil Science Society of America Journal
Vigor Determination in Soybean Seed by Multiple Criteria 1
Aref A. Abdul‐Baki, James D. Anderson (1973) · Crop Science
Evolution of Gene Duplication in Plants
Nicholas Panchy, Melissa D. Lehti‐Shiu, Shin‐Han Shiu (2016) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Legumes: Importance and Constraints to Greater Use
Peter Graham, Carroll P. Vance (2003) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Climate Impacts on Agriculture: Implications for Crop Production
Jerry L. Hatfield, Kenneth J. Boote, Bruce A. Kimball, Lewis H. Ziska (2011) · Agronomy Journal
Statistical Analysis of a Yield Trial
Richard W. Zobel, Madison J. Wright, Hugh G. Gauch (1988) · Agronomy Journal
Lipoxygenases: Occurrence, Functions, Catalysis, and Acquisition of Substrate
Alan Brash (1999) · Journal of Biological Chemistry
The Influence of Climate Change on Global Crop Productivity
David B. Lobell, Sharon Gourdji (2012) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 150 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.