THE IMPACT OF SOWING METHOD AND SEEDING RATE ON LEAF SURFACE AREA DEVELOPMENT AND WINTER WHEAT PRODUCTIVITY

One of the key indicators of a crop photosynthetic activity is the leaf surface area and its development dynamics. Plant leaves act as diffusion reflectors. In the arid and sharply continental soil and climatic conditions of the Almaty region, expanding the leaf surface, ensuring the proper formation of generative organs, and enhancing grain crop productivity are essential agricultural practices. Uneven leaf surface development and its limited size are major factors that negatively affect both yield and grain quality. Therefore, to achieve high productivity with superior grain quality, it is necessary to explore and implement techniques that promote an increase in leaf surface area. Аn increase in leaf surface area is not always a direct indicator of productivity, since it is influenced by various agricultural practices, including crop rotation, soil fertility, fertilization, and soil properties. This research aims to determine the impact of sowing methods and seeding rates of winter wheat on the dynamics of leaf surface development, the formation of generative organs, and grain yield in bogharic lands of southeast Kazakhstan. The research findings indicate that the ridge sowing method for winter wheat varieties provides a significant advantage over the conventional row method. For the Almaly variety, the most effective approach was two-line ridge sowing with a 70 cm furrow spacing and a seeding rate of 1.5 million seeds/ha. For the Erythrospermum-350 and Zhetysu varieties, the optimal methods were two-line and three-line ridge sowing with seeding rates of 2.5 and 3.5 million seeds/ha, respectively. Meanwhile, for the Steklovidnaya 24 variety, wide-ridge sowing with a seeding rate of 4.0 million seeds/ha proved to be the most suitable.