Productivity and quality of winter wheat grain in crop rotations with different types of fallow and at different levels of fertilization

Abstract

The purpose of the current work was to study the effect of various winter wheat forecrops (weedfree fallow, green fallow, sown fallow) and fertilization levels (control without fertilizers, NPK–60 kg.a.i./ha, NPK–80 kg.a.i./ha, NPK–100 kg.a.i./ha) on productivity and quality of winter wheat grain. The study was carried out at the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution “Kursk FARC” in 2018–2020. There has been established that the large-sized grain was grown in a crop rotation with a sown fallow. There has been established that with an increase of mineral fertilizers’ doses, the differences between crop rotations raised. In the crop rotation with sown fallow, grain evenness was also higher, by 0.3 and 0.5 % more than in crop rotations with green manure and weedfree fallow. There has been found that regardless of the crop rotation, with an increase in the dose of mineral fertilizers, grain evenness increased. There has been determined that the trait ‘1000-grain weight’ was the highest when it was sown in green fallow with 48.4 g of NPK–100 kg.a.i./ha, which was due to the improvement of the nutrient regime of the soil with the introduction of green manure. There has been determined that when growing wheat in green fallow in the variant without fertilizers, crude gluten in the flour was 2.3 and 2.5 % more than in sown and weedfree fallow. This pattern was also preserved on fertilized backgrounds. The indicator of gluten percentage in flour increased with the growth of fertilizer. There has been found that crop rotation with weedfree fallow was the best in terms of gluten elasticity. Winter wheat productivity at NPK–60 kg.a.i./ha and NPK–100 kg.a.i./ha was higher when sown in weedfree fallow, and on unfertilized control and at NPK–80 kg.a.i. / ha when sown in green fallow. There has been noted that there is a significant improvement in crop productivity, for example, from 4.39 to 6.19 t/ha in crop rotation with weedfree fallow, with an increase in fertilizer application rates.