COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF NATIONAL AND FOREIGN SAMPLES OF COCKSFOOT GRASS IN THE NORTHERN REGION

Abstract

The cocksfoot grass is a valuable early ripe forage crop with good yield and excellent feed quality. It is used to create hayfields and pastures and is a component of grasslands of meadows of almost all regions of the Komi Republic. However, the expansion of varieties adapted to the soil and climate of the North needs this valuable crop. For this purpose from 2015 to 2018 there was the research of the varieties and wild populations of the cocksfoot grass of the world collection for further use in the creation of new adaptive varieties. The experiment took place in 2015 at the experimental field of the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Komi Scientific Center, the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Syktyvkar). The soil of the plot is sod-podzol, medium loamy in granulometric composition. The collection of nursery-garden included 10 samples of the cocksfoot grass of various ecological and geographical origin. As a standard, the Neva variety was taken. The experiments were carried out using seedlings according to the scheme 80x50 cm, the plot area was 10 m2, four repetition. Varietal samples were evaluated by winter hardness, indicators of productivity of green mass and seeds. Meteorological conditions during the years of research allowed us to evaluate the winter hardness of the cocksfoot grass samples. As a result of evaluating 10 samples, wild-growing samples from the Komi Republic (42733, 43024, 45945) and Norway (41826) were distinguished for a number of economically valuable traits, characterized by high winter hardness, even germination and green mass productivity on average for 3 years - 21.523.7 t/ha, dry weight - 4.7-5.1 t/ha and seeds - 354-576 kg / ha. These samples provide valuable starting material for further breeding work.