Potato growing efficiency increase through improving agrotechnology and agricultural machines

Abstract

In the process of research the attention was focused on the following factors: stock of productive moisture in soil and ridges, soil density and hardness during the growing season for potato growing, indicators of optimal density of sod-podzolic soils in the tuber formation area, plant nutrition area, yield, and as a consequence economic and energy efficiency.

It is determined that the most favourable water regime for potatoes is provided through combined row spacing (75 + 85 cm). In the tuber formation area (10-15 cm) soil moisture is higher by 0.33 mm from the control mark of the full shoots and by 0.6 mm during the flowering period of the potato.

It is established that the use of power tractors during the crop tending reduces compaction, in particular, in the interspace cultivation, the lowest density was recorded in the crops with combined row spacing (75+85 cm) and the width of the tractor wheels of 24.1 cm. The use of extended row spacing (75+75 cm) reduced the soil hardness by 29.8%, and the combined row spacing (75+85 cm) by 26.2% with a tire width of 39.4 cm, which is less than the control mark by 13.2% and 16.7% with tires of 24.1 cm wide accordingly.

With combined row spacing, the width of the formed ridge is greater than the control mark by 4.4 and 9.2% and the ridge girth by 2.9 and 7.4%. The spread of the root system of Yavir variety with combined row spacing is more than the control mark by 18.2% with tires of 24.1 and by 16.8% with tires of 39.4 cm. The indicators of Serpanok variety are by 9.1 and 5.8%, respectively. The area of the tuber nest of the Yavir variety with combined rows is larger than the control mark by 58 and 83 cm².

An increase in the area of plant nutrition for row cultivation with KOH-2.8AM cultivator with the МТЗ-82 power tractor unit with wheel tire sizes of 39.4 and 24.1 cm was established. The largest leaf area per bush (0.66 and 0.68 m²) was obtained during the application of combined row spacing, which is 29.4% and 33.3% more than the control mark, respectively.

The economic evaluation of the results of the study shows that the most effective is the combined row spacing of 75 + 85 cm in the version with the tire wheel size of 24.1 cm, where on average the highest yield of potatoes of the mid ripening Yavir variety is 35.4 t/ha, with a tire size of 39.4 cm - 34.7 t/ha.

Conditional net profit in the version with the tire size of 39.4 cm is UAH 67.9 thousand/ha, and of 24.1 cm – 69.8 thousand/ha, which exceeds the control mark by 15.9 and 17.8 % at the net cost of 1 ton of tubers of UAH 0.74 thousand and UAH 0.73 thousand/ha and profitability of 91.7 і 95.6 %.

The early-ripening variety Serpanok with combined row spacings of 75 + 85 cm produced the highest yield of 30.5 t/ha with a tire size of 39.4 cm and 31.7 t/ha with the tires of 24.1 cm, when the conditional net profit was 56.6 and 59.8 thousand/ha, that is more than the control mark by 12.7 and 15.9 % .

Energy efficiency calculations show that over 50.000 mJ of energy is consumed during the period of potato growing per unit area that is almost twice as much as with cereal crops. The conducted calculations of energy efficiency have shown that variety features and agrotechnical measures have the most significant influence on bioenergy indicators. So, if Yavir variety on the average required for production (consumed) 61.9-79.1thous. mJ/ha, and harvested (reproduced) 68.7-117.4 thous. mJ/ha with energy efficiency ratio (EER) of 1.11-1.48, then in terms of Serpanok variety these figures were 55.5- 68.2 thous. mJ/ha, 61.5-84.7 thous. mJ/ha and EEC - 1.10-1.24.

Comparison of different agro-technological measures applied for the varieties studied shows that the energy efficiency is the highest in the versions where combined row spacing and narrow tractor wheel tires were used. Thus, if 61.9 thousand mJ/ha was consumed by Yavir variety at the control mark, 68.7 thousand mJ/ha was reproduced by the yield, EER 1.11, then in the versions of combined spacing and wheel widths of 39.4 cm – 70.0 and 96.0 thousand mJ/ha and 1.37 respectively.

The energy, 117.4 thousand mJ/ha, was reproduced through the yield with the wheel width of 24.1 cm, 79.1 thousand mJ/ha was consumed, energy efficiency ratio (EER) - 1.48, which is 48.7 and 17.2 thousand mJ/ha and 0.37 more than the control mark. In terms of Serapanok variety with combined row spacings and wheel widths of 24.1 cm, the energy, reproduced through the yield, was 84.7 thousand mJ/ha, 68.2 thousand mJ/ha was consumed, EER - 1.24, which is 23.2 and 12.7 thousand mJ/ha respectively and 0.14 more than the control mark. Variants with extended row spacing (75 + 75 cm) also experienced an increase in energy efficiency, which, however, was slightly inferior to the variants with combined row spacing (75 + 85 cm). Thus, in Yavir variety with consumed energy of 66.1-68.0 thousand mJ/ha, 79.9-85.0 thousand mJ/ha was reproduced, EER was 1.21-1.28, which is 4.2 -3.8 and 11.2-8.3 thousand mJ/ha and 0.10-0.9 more than the control mark. A similar pattern is observed in Serpanok variety. Thus, an energy efficiency analysis showed that the highest EER was obtained in Yavir variety - 1.37-1.48 for combined row spacings. With decreasing row spacing EER decreased to 1.11-1.19. In other words, the use of modern high-efficiency potato varieties and agro-technological measures (combined row spacing, narrow tractor wheel tires) require less energy to achieve high productivity. EER increased by 9-24% compared to the conventional agrotechnical measures.