Plant water status during growth is directly and indirectly associated with seed yield. The objective of the present study was to determine the genotypic differences in leaf water characteristics at an early growth stage of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] plants through the pressure-bomb technique. Measurements of water potential as well as relative water content (RWC) were made at the third leaf from the fully-expanded top leaf of eight different soybean genotypes grown for 31 to 35 days after field emergence. On the basis of the modified exponential model, pressure-volume (PV) curves were fitted well (R²=0.92** to 0.99** for the curvilinear region and R²=0.67** to 0.96** for the linear region), indicating that a segmented model using PROC NLIN of SAS could be used effectively to estimate the leaf water characteristics. The regression analysis for the pressure-volume (PV) curve revealed genotypic variation In the solute potential at saturation (Ψ _s,sat : - 10.7 to -14.8 bar), solute potential at incipient plasmolysls (Ψ _s,sat : -14.3 to -18.3 bar), RWC at incipient plasmolysis (RWC_iP : 83.3 to 91.7%), high integrated turgor pressure from saturation to plasmolysis (∫₁^b Ψ_p : 0.39 to 0.81), and maximum volumetric modulus of elasticity (ε_max : 150 to 445 bar).