Risk of Occurrence of Water Deficit in Soybean Cultivated in Lowland Soils

The occurrence of water deficit is intensified in lowland soils. Generating information with regard to its risk of occurrence is essential to avoid seed yield losses. The objective of this study was to determine the probability of water deficit in soybean cultivated in lowlands of the Vacacaí and Piratini River basins in the southern portion of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil as a function of the sowing date. Soybean development was simulated considering three sets of cultivars of relative maturity groups (RMG) delimited by 5.9–6.8, 6.9–7.3, and 7.4–8.0, with a 10-day interval between the sowing dates making up the period between 21 September and 31 December. Daily meteorological data were used from 1971 to 2017 obtained from the Pelotas meteorological station and from 1968 to 2017 from the Santa Maria meteorological station. Water deficit (mm) in the subperiods and soybean development cycle was obtained from the calculation of evapotranspiration and daily sequential crop water balance. Data of water deficit were subjected to a probability distribution analysis, in which the exponential, gamma, lognormal, normal, and Weibull probability density function (pdf) adjustments were tested using chi-square and Kolmogorov–Smirnov adhesion tests, with a 10% significance level. The water deficit is lower in the Pelotas region than in Santa Maria. Sowings performed from 11 and 1 November present the lowest risk of occurrence of water deficit throughout the soybean cycle in Santa Maria and Pelotas, respectively. Risk of water deficit decreases for the beginning of flowering–beginning of seed (R1–R5) subperiod when soybean sowing occurs from the beginning of November.