The role of nutrients in the formation of yield and grain quality of winter wheat

Volodymyr Lykhochvor, Petro Gnativ, Oleg Andrushko, Viktor Ivanyuk and Yuriy Olifir

Abstract: In order to optimize the winter wheat fertilization system, field studies were conducted on Luvic Greyzemic Phaeozem (Loamic) in the western forest-steppe of Ukraine. The influence of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, magnesium fertilizers and microfertilizers were studied. Under the influence of fertilizers, the structure of the crop changed, in particular, the number of ears increased from 480 pcs/m2 in control to 642 pcs/m2 at the highest rate of fertilizers, grain weight per ear, respectively, from 0.78 g to 1.48 g. The grain yield of winter wheat of the variety Kubus increased from 3.64 t/ha on the option without fertilizers to 9.14 t/ha with the application of N180P60K90S30Mg20 + Intermag microfertilizer, ie by 5.50 t/ha, or 151.1%. The largest increase of grain was provided by nitrogen fertilizers – 2.94 t/ha (80.8%), from the application of potassium, phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium and microfertilizers the yield increased by 2.56 t/ha (70.3%). Nitrogen fertilizers also had the greatest impact on grain quality indicators: the gluten content increased from 18.8% in the variant without fertilizers to 28.0% for N180 application, the protein content, respectively, from 11.5% to 14.0%. From the application of potassium, phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium and microfertilizers, the gluten content increased by 1.4%, the protein content – only by 0.4%.

Keywords: fertilizers; quality; structure; winter wheat; yield

Date published: 2022-02-16