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Globally, the soya bean is one of the most important pulses. According to the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, in 2025 Austria was, for the first time, the EU’s third-largest soya producer, with a harvest of around 272,000 tonnes, behind Italy and France. With around 83,000 hectares of cultivated land, Austria is also among the top five in the EU for soya cultivation and plays a key pioneering role in GMO-free food-grade soya and organic soya cultivation.
In an era of more conscious, low-meat diets, the soya bean is becoming increasingly important as a source of protein for humans and is also a key source of protein in animal feed.
Uses
Soya beans have been an important food crop in China and other Asian countries for thousands of years. Nowadays, the beans are eaten cooked as a vegetable (soya sprouts, green soya beans, edamame), or processed into products such as soya milk, soya flour or tofu. Soya beans are also used as an emulsifier in the production of cooking oil, margarine, baked goods and much more.
The soya bean is also an important protein-rich feedstuff, used mainly in toasted, pressed or extracted form (toasted soya beans, soya press cake or soya extraction meal). These products are high-quality animal feeds, as the protein in soya beans has a high biological value. To improve the digestibility and utilisation of the protein, the beans must be heat-treated, for example by toasting.
Botany
The annual plant grows up to 100 cm high with its upright stem. Most varieties have so-called determinate, i.e. limited, growth and are usually self-fertilising. However, the activity of bees and other pollinators has a positive influence; there is even pure honey.
The soya bean is actually a short-day plant, so the dark/night phase must be long enough to trigger flower formation. For this reason, harvesting was only possible very late in the year. Breeding has significantly reduced the short-day character and today's soya varieties are harvested as early as September, depending on the maturity group and climate region.
Typical of the family, the soya bean has a butterfly flower with a corolla consisting of a boat, flag and wings, the ten stamens are fused together to form a tube. The corolla is small, only slightly longer than the calyx and therefore quite inconspicuous. Their colour ranges from white to purple. Three to eight, sometimes twelve flowers are arranged together in clusters in the leaf axils.
The fruits are hairy pods up to 8 cm long and approx. 10 mm wide, usually containing two to three seeds. The round to egg-shaped seeds are smooth and yellow to brown in colour.
Agricultural aspects
The native range of the wild species, Glycine soja, also known as Glycine ussuriensis, is East Asia. The main growing regions for the cultivated variety, Glycine max, are now the USA, Brazil and Argentina.
In Austria, the area under soya bean cultivation in 2026 was around 83,378 ha; it is estimated that half of this is used directly for food production.
The soya bean prefers a warm, humid climate. In Austria, it thrives best in the (south-)east of the country and is therefore well adapted to the changing climate.
For good growth, the plants require loose, well-aerated, slightly acidic to neutral (pH 6.5 to 7.5) soils with good water-holding capacity. Water requirements are particularly high during flowering and grain formation.
Winter cereals, in particular, but also summer cereals and grain maize are suitable preceding crops. As soya beans are not very competitive due to their slow early growth, it is particularly important that the preceding crop suppresses late-germinating weeds; furthermore, it should not promote uncontrolled nitrogen release. Although soya beans are self-compatible, they should only be grown in succession every four to five years due to the risk of the fungal disease Sclerotinia. The same rotation applies to other legume species, such as beans, clover species, peas, etc., and other crops susceptible to Sclerotinia (rapeseed, sunflower, various vegetable species). As a nitrogen-fixing crop and a plant with a good root system that improves soil structure, the soya bean itself makes a good preceding crop.
The sowing period is from mid-April to early/mid-May, when the soil temperature reaches 10 °C. Sowing can be carried out using a drill or a precision seeder.
Soya beans live in symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing nodule bacteria (Rhizobium japonicum), which must be applied to the seed when soya beans are grown for the first time. These bacteria meet the plant’s high nitrogen requirements. Under normal circumstances, therefore, no nitrogen fertilisation is necessary; higher nitrogen applications can even impair the activity of the nodule bacteria.
Finally, the harvest time depends on the variety and weather conditions and falls between mid-September and the end of October. Maturation begins when the leaves turn yellow; they eventually dry out and fall off. The beans become round and firm and lie loose in the pod (rattling when shaken). Harvesting usually takes place a few days after the leaves have fallen, using a combine harvester, at which point the beans should have a moisture content of 12 to 16 per cent. Average yields range from 1,800 to 3,000 kg/ha.
Last updated: 19.10.2026
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