Viability of seeds and sprouts of winter crop varieties under drought conditions of Steppe

Abstract

It is well known, that considerable variations of the hydrometric figures have occurred in the southern steppes for the last 25 years. They have led to shift from optimal seeding time into later one. It was determined optimal and acceptable period of the seeding for Zaporizhzhia region, it is in the interval from 10th September to 15th October. This period was from 1st to 30th September in the mid-1980s. Period of forming maximum productivity has been changed too (from 25th September to 5th October). There had been studied the viability of the seeds and the sprouts of the winter variety crops (wheat, barley, triticale) in sharp drought conditions of summer-autumn period for 2011. This research has an important scientific and practical value for the development of the strategy of the soil company. On the 3rd October 2011 seeding of winter crops on a black pair constituted as a result 43% of germination of the wheat of Kuyalnik variety (option 1), 21% — Barley varieties Dostonuy (option 2), 41% — Triticale varieties Raritet (option 3), winter wheat varieties Siren of Odessa (option 4), after winter wheat (seeding 10th September) — 0. After the seeds had been staying for a long time in the soil (from 1–3 to 51 days), and then the living samples were sown in the vessels with sand and they were sprouting for 20 days as a result wheat of Kuyalnik variety increased germination by 27% (from 43 to 70%), Barley varieties Dostonuy — by 63% (from 21 to 84%), Triticale varieties Raritet — by 25.5% (from 41 to 66.5%), winter wheat varieties Siren of Odessa — by 55 (from 0 to 55%). Productivity of land was: option 1 — 2.03 t/ha, option 2 — 1.56; option 3 — 3.66; option 4 — 1.26 t/ha. Consequently, in the presence of such conditions as the conditions of severe drought during the pre-seeding period, absence of guaranteed productive moisture in the tillage layer of the soil at the time of optimum planting times, sowing of winter crops will be better organizing at the end of the permissible late period of sowing with an increased seeding norm.