The problems of improving the tillage systems and crop cultivation technologies are of particular relevance both in terms of energy savings and, in general, resource conservation. The article describes various tillage systems using machines and implements of domestic and foreign production for the arid zone of southern Russia. The initial position in the development of cultivation technology of crops are agroecological requirements of the crop and variety to the growing conditions. Sequential overcoming of factors that reduce crop yields and product quality allows us to form the most optimal growing technology for specific climatic conditions of the economy. The article describes the tillage systems - moldboard, resource-saving using domestic tillage equipment, resource-based on foreign technology and recommended using combined technology, which has different effects on the conservation and accumulation of productive moisture. With the moldboard tillage, these indicators are the smallest, and resource-saving systems give approximately the same results when determining the stock of productive moisture in all phases of crop development. Different tillage systems for crop rotation affect the agrophysical indicators of fertility - aggregate composition, water strength, structural coefficient to the same extent. Moldboard tillage system causes the lowest density of soil in the cultivation of crop rotation in comparison with various resource-saving systems, as for the porosity of the soil, in most cases, these indicators of large values are marked by moldboard tillage. Resource-saving tillage systems significantly complicate the phytosanitary situation in the cultivation of crop rotation in comparison with the moldboard tillage system.

The identification of potential soil reserves of potassium available for plants, their predictive assessment, determination of influence of intensity of potassium balance on the yield of major crops and the content of forms of element in the soil is particularly important, which was the basis for the study of the influence of the most common systems of fertilizers on the agrochemical properties of the soil, the peculiarities of changes in the potassium fund of leached humus, the growth and development of corn silage, which indicates the relevance of norms, combinations and forms of fertilizer for specific soil and climatic conditions of maize cultivation.

The research was carried out with the aid of vegetation experiments and on saline soils in production crops of the Stavropol territory farms (Andropovsky, Mineralovodsky and Kochubeyevsky districts). The goal of the research was to identify patterns of germination and formation of sunflower seeds, depending on the influence of saline soils and the use of mineral fertilizers. It was found that sunflower seeds germinate at fairly high concentrations of soil salts. In vegetation experiments, where saline soil containing 1.14% and 1.71% of chloride- sulfate salts was used, the number of sprouted seeds was 96.0% and 89.3% of the unsalted background, respectively, 14 days after sowing. The salinization type has a various impact on seed germination. A greater reduction in their germination was observed during sulfate-chloride salinization. The predominance of sulfates in the salt composition up to 0.4% did not have a negative effect on seed germination, while the predominance of chlorides reduced their germination, starting from 0.2%. If the difference between the two types of salinization at 0.4% was only 2%, then at 1.4% it reached 18%, which indicates an increase in the toxic effects of chlorides as their concentrations increase. In the process of growing plants, soil salts affect plants directly through the root system.