THE ESTIMATION OF WINTER BARLEY VARIETIES ACCORDING TO ECONOMIC-VALUABLE TRAITS IN THE SOUTH OF THE ROSTOV REGION

Winter barley is one of the early ripening grain crops. It is the early ripeness combined with high productivity, lesser needs in good growing conditions that determines the great national economic importance of this culture. To increase and stabilize gross yields of winter barley, it is necessary to develop new varieties adapted to the negative environmental factors. The purpose of the study is to identify promising breeding material for winter barley to grow varieties with high agroecological stability and adaptability to local soil and climatic conditions. The studies were conducted in the FSBSI “Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy” in 2015–2018. The objects of research were the commercial varieties “Timofey”, “Yeryoma”, “Vivat”, the new winter barley varieties “Foks 1”, “Marusya”, as well as the promising breeding lines. The weather conditions of 2017 were more favorable compared with those of 2016 and 2018, which allowed producing higher yields. All the studied winter barley varieties, even in the wet conditions of 2017, showed a high resistance to lodging (4–5 points by a 5-point scale). In the spring and summer months of 2018, there was a significant increase in temperature in comparison with that of 2017. In June there were some days with dry wind, and therefore the air humidity dropped to 38% (23% lower than the multiyear average). The analysis of the yield structure showed that in 2016 the winter barley varieties showed higher values of the traits “number of kernels per ear” and “1000-kernel weight”, and “number of productive stems per 1 m2” in 2017. According to a comprehensive estimation, there have been identified the promising winter barley varieties “Marusya”, “Parallelum 1960” and “Parallelum 1962”, which significantly exceeded the standard variety “Timofey” in terms of productivity, and showed complex resistance to leaf diseases. In 2016, the variety “Marusya” was sent to be studied in the State Variety Network of RF through the North Caucasus region