Jerusalem artichoke is a staple for the raw material base of healthy food, beverages, feed, medicine, and fuel, in addition to being the source of its herbage and tubers. The choice of conditions for cultivating a variety depends on the purpose or direction for the crop and the products obtained from it. This research involved laboratory and on-farm studies of 16 Jerusalem artichoke varieties of different maturity groups cultivated on sod-podzolic sandy loam soils to determine their suitability for further use in feed production. The list of varieties in question is presented in this work. The gross yield of tubers obtained from varieties with early leaf wilting was 33.1–51.1 t/ha, whereas that from varieties with late leaf wilting was 14.4–43.9 t/ha. The total yield of Jerusalem artichoke raw biomass was 36.8–98.1 t/ha. Moreover, early varieties had a dominant mass of tubers in the total feed value structure (68%), whereas herbage mass (59%) prevailed in the total feed value structure of varieties with late leaf wilting. The highest total solids in tubers (25.0–26.4%) were found in varieties Korenevskiy, Novost VIRa, and Blank Brekos; whereas high inulin content was found in varieties Dieticheskiy, Kaluzhskiy, Korenevskiy, Nakhodka, Novost VIRa, and Blank Brekos. The aggregate feed value amounted to 37.0–103.4 thousand MJ/ha of metabolized energy; this exceeded energy production costs on properly selected varieties by two- to three-fold. The data obtained can be useful for growers in the introduction and evaluation of Jerusalem artichoke varieties to be cultivated for further usage and processing, including fodder purposes.

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Based on long-term data, the article considers the peculiarities of growth and development of soybean varieties of the Northern ecotype depending on the conditions of the growing season and the influence of limiting factors. The need of soy plants for heat and moisture increases from seed germination to germination, then to the phases of flowering and bean formation, while their uniform distribution is important. In the absence of abnormal periods of drought or waterlogging, soybean varieties of the Northern ecotype Mature in August – early September. The purpose of the research was to determine the degree of influence of variability of agrometeorological conditions of the vegetation period in different years on the production process of soybean varieties of the Northern ecotype and to assess the possibility of their cultivation in the Ryazan and other regions of the Central district of the Non-Chernozem zone. The experiments were carried out in 2009–2019 years with varieties of soya of Northern ecotype Mahewa, Bright and the Whale. The limiting factor in some years of research in the conditions of the Ryazan region was the lack of moisture, while the biological minimum temperatures were maintained at all stages of growth and development. As a result of the analysis of the average annual temperature and precipitation data, the most favorable conditions for the cultivation of all the studied soybean varieties for seeds are formed in the Bryansk, Oryol and Ryazan regions. For Vladimir, Ivanovo, Kaluga, Moscow, Smolensk and Tula regions, the varieties Kasatka and Mageva are recommended, for Kostroma, Tver, and Yaroslavl – Kasatka. In all areas of the Central region of the Non-Chernozem zone, these varieties can be used to obtain green mass, silage and haylage.

The article presents the results of the study of interspecific and intraspecific first generation soybean hybrids in terms of selection and genetic parameters. The studies were carried out on an experimental field of the breeding laboratory of the FSBSI FRC "All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Soybean" in 2018 – 2019 in order to identify the best genotypes already in the first generation and predict an increase in the selection efficiency in subsequent generations. Hybridization was carried out according to the method of K.K. Malish and T.P. Ryazantseva by forced re-pollination. Highly productive varieties of the Institute breeding Kitrossa, Intriga, Nevesta and the Chinese variety Heihe 27 were used as maternal forms, samples from the collection of wild soybeans KBl-18, KZ-671, KBl-30, KM-705 and varieties Hedi and Tundra were used as paternal forms. The parental forms and the obtained hybrids were analyzed according to the traits: the number of productive nodes, beans, seeds per plant, weight of seeds from one plant and 1000 seeds. The interspecific hybridization analysis of soybeans showed that when crossing cultivars with wild forms, heterosis did not manifest itself in the first generation for any of the economically valuable traits. Hybridization of cultivated soybeans with the wild form is unpromising for the inheritance of economically valuable traits in order to obtain highly productive varieties. Productive hybrids were revealed during intraspecific hybridization of cultivated forms. In the hybrid combination ♀Heihe 27 x ♂Tundra, an increase in heterosis was noted in three traits: the number of beans (13.3%), the mass of seeds per plant, and the number of seeds (45%). The hybrids obtained by crossing of ♀Kitross x ♂Tundra had an advantage over the parental forms in the number of productive nodes and beans, the number of seeds per plant. The size of the seeds was inherited through the maternal line. The degree of phenotypic dominance was revealed only on one trait - the number of seeds per plant (5%). The heterosis effect was noted on the number of productive nodes (80%) and beans (83.3%).

The paper presents the results of long-term research on the infl uence of pinching of Northern ecotype soybeans (Okskaya variety) on yield, protein, and oil productivity in high latitudes (57°), a long day, a limited amount of active temperatures (1700…2000 °C) on sod – podzolic soils of the Non-Chernozem zone of the Russian Federation. The authors determine the prospects of using the method for varieties of an indeterminate type of growth. The pinching of crops was carried out three times: at the beginning of the fl owering phase, in the middle of the fl owering phase, and at the beginning of the bean formation phase. It was found that the pinching of crops carried out at the beginning of the bean formation phase, reduces the duration of the growing season by an average of 15 days. The technique ensures a more than double increase in the number of side shoots. The share of the coarse fraction of seeds was about 89%, the yield of seeds reached up to 2.00 t/ha, the protein content in seeds – up to 42.2%, fat – up to 19.1%, protein collection from the seed yield – up to 0.834 t/ha, essential amino acids in protein – up to 0.459 t/ha, fat – up to 0.380 t/ha, collection of unsaturated fatty acids – up to 0.228 t/ha. It is shown that the technique allows optimizing the ripening processes without reducing the productivity and quality of the crop, while the costs of pinching are paid off by reducing the costs of harvesting. The obtained data can be used to optimize soybean growing technologies at the northern border of the soy cultivation