THE STATE OF WINTER WHEAT PRODUCTION AND BREEDING IN THE ALTAY AREA

154 thousand hectares (64%) of winter wheat are cultivated in theAltaiTerritoryout of the 244 thousand hectares occupied by this grain crop in the whole Siberian Federal District. The main grain crop here is spring soft wheat, which is annually planted on about 2 million hectares, so the sown area of winter wheat is only 8.4%. However, in the foothill regions which grow winter grain crops, the regions with good snow reserves, the ratio of spring and winter grain crops is a bit different, the area under winter grain crops is either approaching or exceeding the spring grain crop. For the conditions of theAltaiTerritorywith a variety of soils, summer precipitation, snow cover height it is desirable to have a wide range of winter wheat varieties with different properties and traits. In the foothill regions the varieties of intensive type, with plasticity, responsiveness to intensification techniques, resistance to lodging, diseases, with high quality of grain are in demand. For more severe conditions, there is a requirement for the varieties with increased frost resistance, plasticity, medium resistance to lodging and high grain quality. The varieties of Altai breeders ‘Zhatva Altaya’ (2002) and ‘Zimushka’ (2015) are included in the List of Breeding Achievements, the variety ‘Metelitsa’ is in the State Variety Testing. In 2017, together with theFSBSIAgriculturalResearchCenter‘Donskoyʼ a new variety of winter wheat ‘Sodruzhestvo’ was sent to the variety testing. On average, during the years of study, the variety surpassed the standard variety on 0.64 t/ha, which corresponded to 16.4%. Among all the merits the variety is also characterized with high resistance to lodging, large-size grains, earlier maturity compared to all cultivated winter wheat varieties in theAltaiTerritory. The variety is intended for foothill regions of Altai and Salair for cultivation by intensive technology.

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