Technological development in maize cultivation

Abstract

With limited financial, material and labour resources, agricultural production has to optimize technology solutions for important crop cultivation. “Green” economy current trends recommend using soil treatment and crop tending technologies that are able to minimize doses of organic and mineral fertilizers applied, to reduce the degree to which plants have been treated with chemicals. This will generally improve the environmental safety of farming. Maize is one of the most important raw materials for animal feed, in varying degrees of cob ripeness it is used as green feed, harvested as silage or as mature grain. An affordable way of livestock product cost reduction is to save on direct production costs. It has been proposed to improve the maize cultivation technology under the specific farm conditions in the Nonchernozem belt of Russia, through replacing mechanic means, combining several operations in one run and substituting fertilizers in a rational way. It has been proposed to replace tractors MTZ-82.1 and K744R1 with more productive and economical New Holland T8.390 and New Holland T4 F. Ploughing can be performed with simultaneous application of complex fertilizers (diasophoska) and disс ploughing. The Vaderstad TopDown 900 is offered as a seedbed maker. The Challenger CH9824 seed planter has been replaced with the John Deere DB37, which provides simultaneous fertilizer application. The picker Acros 595 has been replaced with the more efficient and economical John Deere X9. Original pesticides have also been replaced with cheaper counterparts. As a result of the technological development, direct costs were reduced by 9.6%.