Modern systems of agriculture and a new interpretation of crop rotation value of agricultural crops

Abstract

Based on a broad experimental study of crop rotation productivity in different locations of the Steppe zone, a correlative model for estimating the role of predecessors in the formation of post-crop yields has been developed. The connection between quality of agrotechnologies and change of degree of crop rotation competitiveness of culture is presented. A retrospective analysis of the efficiency of farming and crop rotation systems showed that the constant improvement of varieties and hybrids of crops and technologies for their cultivation created objective agrobiological grounds for reassessment of predecessors in crop rotation. The main motive for this transformation was that in modern agricultural systems, high-potential biotechnological resources allow to obtain higher crop yields on the worst predecessors than on the best in the past. In order to universalize the evaluation of crop rotation efficiency and model their productivity, it is proposed to introduce a crop rotation depression coefficient, which shows the share of yield remaining after individual predecessors compared to its baseline level after black fallow. The most favorable conditions developed after crops with a coefficient above 0,80 – winter wheat, barley, rape, rye, spring barley, oats. At the same time, the development of post-rotational crops was significantly inhibited by sunflower, corn for grain and silage, beets, sorghum and soybeans, their depression coef-ficient was 0,66–0,78. The proposed methodology of system analysis for the assessment of predecessors opens wider opportunities for the formation of adapted crop rotations, optimization the set of crops to market requirements, formation important adjustments to crop rotations in extreme conditions, regulation crop rotation productivity taking into account agrotechnological modernization. Keywords: crop rotation, tillage, fertilizers, crops, grain, predecessors, harvest, minimization.