NO-TILL IS THE BEGINNING OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE EXTREMELY ARID CONDITIONS OF THE VOLGOGRAD REGION

Abstract

The first experiments on direct seeding (No-till) at the Lower Volga Research Institute of Agriculture, the branch of Federal Scientific Center for Agroecology of RAS were carried out  in 2014. The purposeful study of this system was started in 2018 with the transfer of the agricultural area part to an experimental stationary to study the No-till technology in the extremely arid conditions of light chestnut soils in the Volgograd Region. The first year of research showed conflicting results. The reserves of productive moisture in the fallow for the entire period of fallowing and vegetation period of the studied crops remained at a higher level than in previous years with similar conditions. Before sowing, the moisture reserves were 90,2 mm, by the end of the growing season of spring crops, they had decreased to minimum values; in the chemical fallow, due to precipitation in the second half of July, 85,7 mm of productive moisture had accumulated in the meter layer. The microbiological activity of the soil in the fallows was 60% higher than usual in the classical treatments. However, the yield of cultivated crops showed a slight difference in comparison with the classical treatments, which implies in the first years of development of direct sowing technology, a decrease in yield or its low rates. The harvest of sunflower and corn amounted to 1,9 tons/hectare and 4,0 tons/hectare, which for the weather conditions of 2018 with HTC=0,5 is quite a high result. The economic efficiency of spring crops grown using direct seeding technology showed a high CEE (coefficient of economic efficiency) compared with classical treatments, and it was 3,36 for spring wheat and 4,65 for barley. The obtained positive results for 2018-2019 with the use of direct seeding technology suggest the need for further research in this direction.