Yield of winter soft wheat depending on sowing time in foreststeppe conditions of Western Siberia

Abstract

Overwintering is of paramount importance among the various factors responsible for the creation of winter wheat, which largely depends on the potential of the genotype, sowing time and weather conditions. Sowing time is one of the vital agrotechnical factors in the technology of winter wheat cultivation. The research aims to study the influence of sowing time on the formation of the yield of local varieties of soft winter wheat in the conditions of the forest-steppe of Western Siberia. The studies were carried out in 2018–2022 on the Siberian Research Institute of Plant Growing and Breeding - a branch of ICG SB RAS. Five varieties of soft winter wheat were used as an object of study. Sowing was carried out in three terms (the first - on August 20, the second - on September 01, and the third - on September 10). The maximum yield over the years of research was observed when sowing in the second term. On average, over three years, the increase was 0.53 and 0.66 t/ha compared to the first and third sowing periods, respectively. The highest yield was noted in the Krasnoobskaya winter variety during the second sowing period - 5.76 t/ha in 2022 and 5.16 t/ha on average over three years. The analysis of variance showed that the influence of all the studied factors on the change in yield is reliable. The maximum force was exerted by the interaction of the factors “year” and “variety” and amounted to 22.7%. The remaining elements were distributed as follows: sowing time -14.5, year conditions - 12, genotype - 12.7, the interaction of year conditions and sowing date - 7.9, the interaction between sowing time and genotype is 2.1%, the totality of all factors is 6.7%. According to the results of the correlation analysis, the yield in the years of research was in a significant relationship with overwintering (R = 0.52) and with the number of productive shoots (R = 0.53). In turn, the indicators of overwintering and the number of influential nodes correlate with the coefficient R = 0.36, which is also reliable. Based on the study, it can be concluded that the optimal sowing time for the growth and development of soft winter wheat is the second sowing time with a shift of 1–3 days in both directions.