Features of cultivation of corn for grain on ordinary chernozem in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic

Abstract

Corn grain is the most valuable in terms of nutritional value, digestibility and energy intensity. In the grain balance its share is 5–7 %, in the feed – 30–35 %. Today, corn is cultivated in 58 countries on an area of 138–141 million hectares. Corn plays a crucial role in the restoration and expansion of the fodder base. In recent years, due to the need to optimize labor and money costs when cultivating corn, it has become especially difficult to choose the right method of basic tillage for corn. Most authors who study the influence of tillage methods on corn yield believe that disking as the main tillage is inferior to plowing in terms of moisture retention and accumulation, the effect on corn yield and crop contamination. According to some data, one of the elements of corn cultivation technology that have an advantage are hybrids with increased drought resistance, cold resistance, resistance to lodging and fragility of the stem. The purpose of the work was to determine the features and improve the technology of cultivation of corn for grain on ordinary chernozem in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. The objects of research are medium–ripened, medium-early and early-maturing hybrids DKS 3939, AC 201, Mashuk 171. In the conditions of the Republic the complex infl uence of tillage techniques – disking and plowing, as well as hybrids of foreign and domestic breeding on soil fertility and corn grain productivity was studied. The cultivation of corn hybrids in the zone of unstable moisture has proved a positive agronomic assessment of the treatment method – plowing, which is justified not only by the increase in yield, but also by its economic efficiency.