Sucrose, raffinose, and stachyose make up the majority of the carbohydrates in soybean seeds. While sucrose is a desirable component of soybean seeds, raffinose and stachyose are considered to be anutritive factors and eliminating or reducing them appears to be a beneficial endeavour. The major objective of this study was to determine the genetic mechanism controlling accumulation of soluble saccharides in soybean seeds. An experimental soybean line, V99-5089, with high sucrose (14.6%) content coupled with low amounts of raffinose (0.5%) and stachyose (0.4%) was the center of this study. Three populations were studied and segregation patterns were observed in F2:3 populations.

All three sugars were extracted by an aqueous procedure and quantified by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) using a NH2 column and refractive index (RI) detector. Segregation of seeds from F2:3 plants indicated a single, partially recessive gene reduced stachyose content of soybean seeds from about 4% to less than 1%. Estimates of genetic variability indicate the presence of sufficient additive variation in addition to the putative major gene to warrant selection.

Raffinose and stachyose were positively correlated to each other and each was negatively correlated with sucrose while there was not a significant correlation between total sugar content and the amount of any of the individual sugars. Agronomic traits evaluated do not appear to be adversely effected by the reduction of stachyose content. Additionally, a negative relationship was observed between inorganic phosphorus and stachyose content of soybean seeds but a relationship was not observed between stachyose and phytate phosphorus or between inorganic phosphorus and phytate phosphorus.