The impact of energy-saving agrotechnical methods on the grop yield and quality of winter wheat and spring barley grain

The research results show that the degree of seediness during the plants tillering stage is the highest for the annual disc and zero tilling options. The increased degree of seediness with perennial weeds for this type of tillage is also true for the barley crops during the leaf-tube formation stage: with the average numbers estimated at 10 and 15 PCs/m2, it amounts to 24 and 32 PCs/m2. Another effect of this type of tillage is that the number of offset weeds exceeds the allotted level. Sheen implementing disc tillage, winter wheat and spring barley yield appears to be higher than when ploughing, by 1.0-1.6 cwt/ha respectively (which is within the margin of error). Disc and zero tilling alternation made the barley yield decrease by 7.5 cwt/ha, while the winter wheat yield arguably went down by 0.4 cwt/ha. Ploughing resulted in the gluten content level in comparison to the other tillage types implemented during the experiment and it corresponds to the 2nd class of the "extra" grain. Zero tilling decreased the gluten content by 1.1-1.4%, while energy-saving tillage during the cultivation of "Vladimir" barley in 2017 decreased the protein content by 1.0% in comparison to ploughing. To sum up, over the course of two years within the crop rotation under study the results are the following. Implementing disc tillage allows for the highest crop yield amounting to 25.4 cwt/ha, while mouldboard tillage and zero and disc tilling alternation decrease the croup yield by 1.3 cwt/ha and 5.3 cwt/ha respectively.