Efficiency of cultivation of timothy grass for seeds in cover crops

Timothy grass is the most common crop among perennial cereal grasses. Since 2019, a new variety of timothy grass VIK 911 has been registered in the State Register, which requires the development of a technology for its cultivation for seeds. Timothy grass is a spring-winter species by its development type and tolerates moderate shading well in the first year of life, which makes it possible to sow it under the cover of other crops. The purpose of the work is to conduct a comparative assessment of various cover crops for timothy grass when cultivating it for seeds in the conditions of the Central Non-Black Earth Region. Comparative assessment of cover crops of zoned varieties with seeding rates reduced by 25–30%: spring barley Zazerskiy 85, spring oats Skakun, white mustard Lugovskaya, tansy-leaved phacelia Ryazanskaya, spring vetch Lugovskaya 24, annual ryegrass Rapid revealed different complementarities of their interaction and influence on the formation of the seed stand structure of timothy. The best development of juvenile timothy plants occurred under the cover of barley, vetch-oat mixture for green fodder in the ratio of components 1:3, phacelia and white mustard. When cultivating timothy under the cover of these crops, the yield of its seeds from the grass stands of the first year use was 467–490 kg/ha against 476 kg/ha from coverless spring sowings. In the second year of use, the yield of timothy grass seeds after the effect of cover crops, with the exception of a vetch-oat mixture for green fodder with a component ratio of 1:1, was in the same confidence interval of 531–556 kg/ha versus 546 kg/ha from coverless crops.