The results of field experiments are presented, in which the influence of varietal characteristics of grain crops of different breeding periods on the effectiveness of using mineral fertilizers for them on various soils was studied. Special attention was paid to the specific removal of nutrients, which means the consumption of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium of 1 ton of grain harvest with an appropriate amount of straw. The results of the experiments showed that the studied varieties responded differently to the application of fertilizers. Almost all modern varieties provided higher yields compared to previously zoned ones. The Mironovskaya 808 winter wheat variety on sod-podzolic soil was almost 2 times inferior to the Moskovskaya 39 variety and 1.7 times inferior to the Lgovskaya 4 variety on leached chernozems when applying the same dose of NPK. Similar data were also obtained for spring barley of the Moskovsky 121 variety and NUR and Elf varieties on sod-podzolic soils, where when N60P60K60 was applied, a yield of 2.7 t/ha was obtained in the first case and 4.9 and 4.7 in the second. Identical results were also observed on leached chernozems and light chestnut soils. In experiments with spring wheat, the result was the same, but the yield of this crop was lower compared to winter wheat and spring barley. The varieties of the studied cereals reacted to a lesser extent to changes in the specific removal of nutrients, and the data obtained did not show a sufficiently clear pattern, which necessitates continued research in this direction.