Ecological trial of the winter wheat varieties of the ARC “Donskoy” in the area of dark chestnut soils of the Volgograd region

Abstract

The current paper has presented the trial results of the winter wheat varieties developed by the ARC “Donskoy” in 2018 -2020. Currently, the farmers have bred a lot of different wheat varieties, but they are not able to take into account all the peculiarities of their cultivation. The purpose of the current work was to study the features of the autumn and spring-summer vegetation periods of the winter wheat varieties developed by the ARC “Donskoy” in the area of dark chestnut soils of the Volgograd region. There have been selected 10 winter wheat varieties for the trials. The field trial was laid down on dark chestnut soils of the lands of the Serafimovichsky district in the Volgograd region. The study was carried out according to the generally accepted B.A. Dospekhov’s methodology. The field trials showed that the germination of winter wheat was influenced by a seeding depth, which was 7-9 cm. The best germination was found among the varieties ‘Asket’, ‘Etyud’, ‘Lilit’, ‘Donskaya Step’ and ‘Zhavoronok’. During the trials, the formation of a productive stand was greatly influenced by the weather (the length of a spring tillering period, precipitation in May), as well as the traits of the variety. The winter wheat varieties ‘Etyud’, ‘Shef’, ‘Donskaya Step’, ‘Krasa Dona’ were able to form a large number of productive stems under favorable weather conditions. Under insufficient moisture supply, the largest number of productive stems was formed by the varieties ‘Lidiya’ and ‘Lilit’. The highest tillering intensity during an autumn vegetation period was shown by the variety ‘Lidiya’ (4.7–6.2 shoots), including the varieties ‘Zhavoronok’ (4.2–5.4 shoots) and ‘Etyud’ (4.0–5.3 shoots). The largest productivity was produced by the varieties ‘Donskaya Step’ (4.97 t/ha), ‘Zhavoronok’ (4.95 t/ha), ‘Krasa Dona’ (4.90 t/ha) over three years.