Abstract: Transgenic crops with good commercial value and excellent trait quality have brought great economic and social benefits to the world, but the unknown environmental risks associated with transgenic products make their safety controversial, which needs to be determined. Using the glyphosate-resistant soybean GE-J12 transferred with G2-EPSPS and GAT bivalent genes, the recipient Jack, and the conventional main variety ZH37, we examined the number of culturable microorganism species and changes in soil enzyme activities by burying of the leaves of the three soybean varieties in soil from 2018 to 2020. The aim was to clarify the environmental safety of transgenic glyphosate-resistant soybean leaves in the soil degradation process. The results in 2019 showed that, in the whole 90-day survey period, changes in the species number of fungi, actinomycetes and bacteria during the degradation process of the three varieties of soybean leaves in soil were similar. The activities of soil dehydrogenase, soil urease and soil sucrase were also similar between the three treatments except that the soil sucrase activity of the GE-J12 treatment was significantly lower than that of the ZH37 treatment at 10 days after treatment. Between the years, the species number of the soil fungal, actinomycete and bacterial populations and the activities of soil dehydrogenase, soil urease and soil sucrase generally did not vary greatly, although the number of microorganisms species was higher in 2018 than in 2019 and 2020. The study shows that the degradation of transgenic glyphosate-resistant soybean GE-J12 leaves in soil under natural conditions causes no significant changes in the soil culturable microbial populations and soil enzyme activities, with the same environmental safety as the recipient Jack and the conventional main cultivar ZH37.

Key words: transgenic glyphosate-resistant soybean, degradation, culturable soil microorganisms, soil enzyme activity