STUDY OF NO-TILL TECHNOLOGY IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE ARID ZONE IN THE LOWER VOLGA REGION

Abstract

The first field experiments to study the technology of agricultural crop cultivation without tillage (No-till technology) in the Lower Volga Research Institute of Agriculture (currently a branch of the Federal Scientific Center of Agroecology of the Russian Academy of Sciences) in the extremely dry conditions of light chestnut soils in the Volgograd region began in 2014. However, the data obtained were very contradictory, since the anchor seeder was used for sowing, which greatly loosened the top layer of soil, which led to a rapid loss of moisture and its drying out. In 2018, after the acquisition of a special seeder for sowing in uncultivated soil, a more in-depth study of this technology began. In a stationary field experiment conducted in 2018-2019, it was found that before sowing spring crops, the content of productive moisture in the meter layer of soil was 90,2-109,4 mm, but due to severe drought its amount was rapidly decreasing, and by the ripening of plants, productive moisture in the soil was absent. The assimilation coefficient of precipitation in the chemical fallow was 70,1% in 2018 and 53,9% in 2019. At the same time, the microbiological activity of the soil here was 60% higher than in the bare cultivated fallow. The yield of early spring crops was the same as when the tillage, while the yield of sunflower and corn with the use of new technology in 2018 amounted to 1,9 and 4,0 tons/hectare, which is quite satisfactory when the HCC of the growing season is equal to 0,5. In 2019, the yield of cultivated crops was lower than in technologies with tillage. However, due to the lower labor costs and funds for the cultivation of the studied crops, the bioenergy efficiency coefficient in the new technology in 2018 for spring wheat was 3,36, for barley 4,65, in 2019 there were 2,80 for barley and 2,45 for winter wheat, which is significantly more than in the cultivation of these crops according to the technology recommended by scientific institutions with tillage