Abstract Soybean is a key crop in many countries, being used from human food to the animal industry due to its nutritional properties. Financially, the grain chain moves large sums of money into the economy of producing countries. However, like other agricultural commodities around the world, it can have its final yield seriously compromised by abiotic environmental stressors, like drought. As flowers imply in pods and in grains inside it to minimize damages caused by water restriction, researchers have focused on understanding flowering-process related genes and their interactions. Here a review dedicated to the soybean flowering process and gene network involved in it is presented, describing gene interactions and how genes act in this complex mechanism, also ruled by environmental triggers such as day-light and circadian cycle. The objective was to gather information and insights on the soybean flowering process, aiming to provide knowledge useful to assist in the development of drought-tolerant soybean lines, minimizing losses due to delays or anticipation of flowering and, consequently, restraining financial and productivity losses.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a dispersão de pólen transgênico em soja. Plantas transgênicas de soja contendo os genes ahas, para tolerância ao herbicida imazapyr, e uidA (GUS), foram cultivadas com plantas não-transgênicas. A dispersão do pólen transgênico foi avaliada pela presença de ambos os genes dominantes na progênie de plantas não-transgênicas. A maior freqüência de disseminação de pólen transgênico foi observada na primeira linha, distante 0,5 m da parcela central (0,44% a 0,45%). Esta freqüência foi reduzida drasticamente na linha 2 (0,04% a 0,14%), atingindo 0 na linha 13, a 6,5 m da parcela central.

The objective of this work was to evaluate pollen dispersal from transgenic to non-transgenic soybean plants. Non-transgenic soybean plants were cultivated surrounding transgenic soybean plants carrying the ahas (for herbicide tolerance against imazapyr) and gus genes. Pollen dispersal was evaluated by the presence of both dominant genes in the progenies of non-transgenic plants. The highest amount of transgenic pollen dissemination was observed in the first row, 0.5m distant from the central plot (0.44% to 0.45%). The frequency of pollen dispersion has drastically decreased in the row 2 (0.04% to 0.14%), reaching zero by the row 13, which was 6.5 m distant from the central plot.