The Effect of Fertilizer Usage on Winter Triticale Productivity

Abstract

The article presents the results of three-year studies conducted on the experimental field of the All-Russian Research Institute of Reclaimed Lands (VNIIMZ). The purpose of the research was to study the efficiency of various rates of fertilizer usage on winter triticale productivity. There has been studied the effect of rates of mineral fertilizer usage on the elements of the winter triticale yield structure, protein percentage in grain, use of photosynthetically active solar radiation (PAR efficiency), fertilizers’ cost recovery by yield increase. The cultivation of winter triticale was carried out on a drained well-cultivated sod-podzolic light loamy gleyed soil. The winter triticale was sown after one-year-old clover in three variants: the first variant was without fertilizer usage, the second variant was with N15Р15K45+ N30fertilizer usage (in the period of tillering) and the third variant was with N30Р30K90+N60fertilizer usage. In the variant without fertilizer usage the productivity was 3.37 t/ha on average. In the second variant the productivity increased on 56.4% to 5.27 t/ha, in the third variant the increase was on 78.9% to 6.03 t/ha. Due to the use of fertilizer, the number of productive stems raised on 95 and 117 pcs/m2, the number of kernels per head increased on 4.0 and 6.0 pcs. The protein content in grain in the variants with fertilizer usage increased on 1.0–1.7%. The PAR efficiency without fertilizer usage was the lowest (1.34), it was 1.94 with N45Р15K45fertilizer usage and 2.26 with N90Р30K90fertilizer usage. Fertilizers’ cost recovery by winter triticale yield increase which was sown after one-year-old clover in a well-cultivated soil, was the highest with 18.1 kg/kg of N45Р15K45fertilizer usage and with 12.7 kg/kg of N90Р30K90fertilizer usage.