Development of agrotechnical methods to increase soybean yield in the conditions of the CCR

The trend of the last 10 years is characterized by an increase in soybean yields from 1.30 t/ha to 1.67 t/ha and gross yields from 2.7 million tons to 7.0 million tons, due to the use of modern cultivation technologies, updating agricultural machinery, expanding the area for growing this crop and creating new varieties with the best characteristics. One of the key agro-technological tasks in the technology of successful soybean cultivation is to determine the optimal seeding rates and sowing methods, which are the most important elements of the technology that affect growth, development and, consequently, formation of the yield of the agricultural crop. The paper presents results of the research in 2021-2024, which studied the influence of seeding rates and sowing methods on economically valuable traits and the yield of various soybean varieties in the conditions of the Central Chernozem Region. The examined material was the soybean varieties bred by the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution Federal Scientific Center of Legumes and Groat Crops: Slava, Orleya, Mezenka and Zusha. Before harvesting, at the stage of full ripeness (R8), plant samples were taken for the structural analysis. It was found that the Orleya and Zusha varieties responded more actively to the seeding rate of 500 thousand pcs/ha, which was confirmed by an increase in the values of their structural elements and an increase in yield by 0.11 and 0.14 t/ha. Slava and Mezenka achieved the best results with a seeding rate of 600 thousand pcs/ha. The yield increase for the Slava variety was 0.11 t/ha. It should be noted that wide-row crops of all the studied varieties have a comparatively greater stem length and yield.