Understanding soybean growth stages is fundamental for all aspects of soybean production. Determining the correct growth stage is essential for timing application of post-applied products, estimating yield potential or yield loss due to crop injury, estimating maturity dates and irrigation scheduling. However, several soybean growth staging systems published in the last 45 years present contradicting and vague descriptions. This project aims to simplify the current growth stage indicators, use the revised stages to better describe soybean seed-fill duration, revise the definition of physiological maturity and harvest maturity, develop a new way to designate maturity groups that reflects the duration of the growing season and define and assign the role of determinacy (e.g. determinate, indeterminate, and semi-determinate).