Yield and energy efficiency of sunflower cultivation under different primary soil tillage methods

Under conditions of typical medium-loam black soil (Sumy region, Ukraine), it has been demonstrated that the productive moisture reserve either depends on the tillage method (plowing, deep loosening, disking) or may not depend, depending on the weather conditions during the research years. The highest soil moisture values were obtained with plowing and deep loosening. The highest sunflower yield was achieved with plowing in the research years of 2022 and 2023, reaching 2.86 t ha-1 and 2.51 t ha-1, respectively. When assessing the energy efficiency of the studied tillage methods, it should be noted that plowing is the most energy-consuming and costly. The energy efficiency coefficient was highest with deep loosening.