New winter common wheat variety ‘Saban’ for the middle Volga Region

Winter wheat in the Republic of Tatarstan is sown annually on an area of more than 300 K hectares. The purpose of the current work was to develop a new variety ‘Saban’ and characterize its ability to produce high yields and grain quality in the northern regions of the Middle Volga region. The study was conducted on the fields of the Tatarsky RIA, SSU of the FRC KazRC of RAS in 2020–2022. Seeds were laid in ‘black’ fallow at the optimal time. The variety ‘Saban’ was developed by the method of individual selection from a hybrid population obtained from crossing the varieties ‘Kazanskaya 285’ and ‘Bezenchukskaya 380’. On average, over three years of testing, winter resistance was 88 %, and the plant height was 74 cm, which is 9.7 cm lower than that of the standard variety ‘Kazanskaya 560’. Lodging resistance was 8.7 points with a coefficient of variation of 6.66 %. The variety ‘Saban’ is of the intensive type, responsive to the application of complex fertilizers. The variety was better than the standard variety ‘Kazanskaya 560’ in productivity by 0.64 t/ha. Under arid conditions of 2021 the variety yielded 4.20 t/ha, which was 0.65 t/ha more than the standard variety did. This result was due to the productive stem density and a large number of grains per ear. The variety produced heavy kernels, its nature weight was 770–802 g/l. Crude protein percentage in grain ranged from 13.2 % to 15.2 %, and gluten varied from 27.0 % to 29.7 %. The variety formed high indicators of rheological qualities, such as 301 u.a. of flour strength, and 59 % of valorimetric estimation. The general baking assessment for three years of study was 4.5 points. The variety can be recommended for cultivation in the Middle Volga region of the Russian Federation from 2024.