INFLUENCE OF PRE-SOWING SEED INOCULATION ON THE FORMATION OF YIELD OF PEANUT VARIETIES (ARACHIS HYPOGAEA L.)

Prospects for increasing the area of peanuts sown in Ukraine require improving the elements of cultivation technology. In agricultural practice, the use of methods to stimulate biological nitrogen fixation is of great importance, which ensures an increase in crop yields and a reduction in the negative impact of production on the environment. As a legume, peanuts have the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen through symbiosis with the bacteria Bradyrhizobium japonicum. Thus, successful peanut cultivation requires careful seed inoculation. The purpose of the research was to establish the patterns of peanut yield formation depending on varietal properties and pre-sowing seed inoculation. Field studies were conducted in the conditions of the Poltava region during 2023–2024. The object of the research was studied according to the scheme of a two-factor experiment: factor A - peanut varieties: Valencia Ukrainian, Stepnyak, Veselka, Vechirnii Rio; factor B - options for seed treatment with the Optimize 400 inoculant (1.8 l/t). The obtained data were subjected to statistical processing using the Statistica 6.0 program. According to the results of the field experiment, a positive effect of pre-sowing treatment of peanut seeds with the inoculant Optimize 400 on plant growth and development was established. In the variants with the use of pre-sowing treatment of seeds with the inoculant, an increase in the indicators of the main structural elements of productivity was observed: plant height - 13.50%; number of beans per plant - by 16.5%, number of seeds per plant - 21.1%; seed mass per plant - 26.4%; mass of 1000 seeds - 4.5%. Peanut yield varied from 0.71 t/ha to 2.64 t/ha depending on the individual properties of the variety, weather conditions of the research year and the variant of using the inoculant for pre-sowing treatment of seeds. According to average data for 2023-2024. The highest yield was observed in the variety Vechirnii Rio - 2.1 t/ha, and the lowest in the variety Stepnyak - 9.4 t/ha. It was found that the effectiveness of pre-sowing seed treatment with inoculant for peanut cultivation depended on the weather conditions of the research year. In general, inoculation of peanut seeds contributed to an increase in yield by 15.5%.