Responsiveness of agricultural crops in field crop rotation to the application of different doses of mineral fertilizers

In 2017–2022 in the forest-steppe of the Euro-North-East part of the Russian Federation (the Republic of Mordovia) in a field crop rotation (spring barley with clover undersowing – first year clover – winter wheat – spring barley – sudan grass) on leached chernozem there was carried out the research to optimize the doses and ratio of NPK in fertilizers. In all years of research, nitrogen was the main element that determined the crop yield in the crop rotation. Its minimum inclusion in the fertilizer dose (N₄₅) increased the total grain harvest units for crop rotation by 25.8 % compared to the control (9.89 tons of grain units). The use of N₉₀ and N₁₃₅ increased productivity by 19.65 and 56.9 %, respectively, relative to the dose of N₄₅. Phosphorus and potassium in the fertilizer did not significantly affect the yield. On average, for two crop rotations, red clover and Sudan grass turned out to be the most productive (3.48–3.52 tons of crop units/ha). Of the grain crops, winter wheat achieved the highest productivity (on average 3.29 tons of crop units/ha). A study of the dynamics of agrochemical soil parameters relative to the initial determination showed that the use of phosphorus and potassium fertilizers in the dose of P₃₀ and K₃₀ maintained the concentration of P₂O₅ and K₂O at the initial level. The introduction of a dose of P₆₀ and K₆₀ increased the content of phosphorus and potassium by 3.5 and 4,0 %, respectively. In variants where phosphorus and potassium were not added, the concentration of P₂O₅ and K₂O decreased by 7 and 8 %, respectively. For nitrogen, only the N₁₃₅ dose, regardless of the ratio with phosphorus and potassium, increased its content in the soil by 9 %. Calculation of the efficiency of fertilizer application for yield increase of 1 ha of rotation area showed that high costs for the purchase of phosphorus and potassium fertilizers significantly reduced the efficiency of their use, especially against the background of N₄₅, where a negative level of profitability was obtained (up to minus 30 %). The greatest economic effect (143 %) was obtained by applying nitrogen at a dose of N₉₀. Among the options with complete mineral fertilizer, the maximum conditional net income (10750 rubles/ha) and the level of profitability (85.5 %) were obtained in the N₁₃₅P₃₀K₃₀ variant.

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