---

I went to San Antonio to attend the ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting.

It was my first time to visit Texas, and the weather was great!!

I had an oral presentation about my agrivoltaics study I’d conducted for the last two seasons. The title was ‘Shading Impacts on Sorghum and Soybean Grain Yields Under Agrivoltaic Systems: Source-Sink Strength in Response to Shading.’

Agrivoltaic (AV) systems induce shading throughout the entire crop growth period, and understanding how these shading patterns impact overall crop growth and development, as well as yield, is crucial for sustainable production. If the shading effect results in a yield penalty, understanding which yield components contribute to this penalty would be crucial to optimizing management practices in AV systems. The main objectives of this study were to elucidate the responses of sorghum and soybean to shading within AV systems concerning both yield and its components, and identify the key yield components primarily affected by shading. We also investigated the effects of assimilate availability on grain weight by source-sink manipulation (defoliation and de-graining) at post-anthesis. For both crops, shading significantly reduced grain number. When assimilate availability was altered by source-sink manipulation during grain filling, grain weight significantly responded to the change of assimilate availability in sorghum, whereas only soybean grain weight was responsive to decreased assimilate availability. The distinct physiological mechanisms in sorghum and soybean suggest the need for different farming strategies in AV systems. First, enhancing sink size (i.e., increasing grain number) in both sorghum and soybean would be a beneficial breeding strategy. Second, farming strategies at post-anthesis would differ for sorghum and soybean in AV systems. Increasing assimilates in sorghum during grain filling could help offset the yield penalty by boosting grain weight, while in soybean, the emphasis should shift to resource management to prevent a lack of resources at post-anthesis rather than increasing assimilates.

https://scisoc.confex.com/scisoc/2024am/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/158780

---

---

---