PRODUCTIVITY AND QUALITY OF AGRICULTURAL CROPS IN VARIOUS FALLOW LINKS OF CROP ROTATION

Purpose: to study the impact of fallow predecessors of winter wheat and fertilization systems on its productivity and quality, as well as on the yield of subsequent crop of sugar beet. Materials and methods. The research was conducted over 23 years in a field stationary experiment. The predecessors of winter wheat were black fallow, green manure fallow and sown fallow. Organic and organomineral fertilization systems were applied. In the first case, the following were carried out: 1) manure application – 6 t/ha of arable land (30 t/ha for winter wheat); 2) use of non-marketable part of the crop yield and green manure mass in fallow for fertilization. In addition to this, mineral fertilizers were applied on an organomineral background – N₁₈₅P₁₈₅K₂₀₀ per crop rotation, and N₆₀P₆₀K₆₀ and N₉₀P₉₀K₉₀ were applied for winter wheat and sugar beet, respectively, i. e. in this case the level of fertilizer application was higher. Results. After sown fallow, the average productivity of winter wheat, compared to bare fallow, decreased in the variant with the mineral fertilizers application by 20 %, without them – by 13 %. The advantage of bare fallow over green manure in terms of wheat grain yield was only on an organomineral background – by 0.27 t/ha. Replacing black fallow with green manure led to an increase in the yield of sugar beet, especially with an organic fertilization system. In all studied crop rotation links, the organomineral fertilizer system surpassed the organic one in productivity of both winter wheat and sugar beet. The quality of winter wheat grain decreased in the crop rotation with sown fallow and was practically the same in crop rotations with black and green manure fallow. Conclusions. The highest yield of sugar beet root crops over 23 years of research was obtained in the grain-fallow-row crop rotation with green manure fallow. The grain quality indicators of winter wheat were the highest and practically the same in crop rotation links with black and green manure fallow and lower in the link with sown fallow. The obtained result may indicate that in crop rotations of farms specializing in grain and sugar beet growing, partial replacement of black fallow with green manure is possible in the structure of sown areas, which will improve the state of soil fertility.