Effectiveness of Foliar Feeding of Rapeseed in the 2017–2018 Season in the Steppe Zone

Winter rapeseed is a crop oriented mainly to export, providing farmers with the first income from crop production. Despite quite substantial resource costs for growing it, the crop almost always brings profit. Throughout the whole growing season it is important to supply plants with macro- and microelements. Microelements and biologically active substances, where needed, are best applied by foliar feeding. Among technological means that ensure successful overwintering of plants and the formation of yield size and quality are foliar nutrition fertilizers.

In the 2017–2018 winter rapeseed growing season we studied the effect of foliar feeding with special fertilizers produced by ECOORGANIC on yield formation depending on soil and climate conditions, level of resource supply and sowing dates. Trial plots on commercial crops were located in Dnipro and Nikopol districts of Dnipropetrovsk region. The farms differed in moisture supply and resource supply of the growing technology.

In the field of Nyva 1 farm in Nikopol district a comparative trial was carried out of the foliar feeding system adopted on the farm and the one proposed by ECOORGANIC. The trial scheme included: stem elongation: ECOLINE Phosphite (K) 1.0 l/ha; budding: ECOLINE Boron (Premium) 1.0 l/ha + GROS Quicelium 1.0 l/ha; start of pod formation: ECOLINE Oilseed (Chelates) 1.0 l/ha.

Interim assessments carried out by us in this field (table 1) showed an advantage of the winter rapeseed foliar feeding system from ECOORGANIC LLC over the one adopted on the farm.

In early May, winter rapeseed plants in the variant with foliar feeding from ECOORGANIC LLC had a substantial advantage in such key indicators as plant mass and the number of branches per plant, which is also visible in the photo.

The feeding schemes and yield assessment results are given in table 2.

Yield assessments at harvest confirmed the previous results. The yield gain in the variant with the foliar feeding system from ECOORGANIC LLC was 2.6 c/ha in absolute terms, or 9.3% compared with the control, the winter rapeseed foliar feeding system adopted on the farm.

ECOORGANIC trial at the farm TD Demetra

The second farm, TD Demetra, is located in Dnipro district. The field where winter rapeseed was sown belonged to irrigated land of a vegetable rotation with good agrochemical and physico-chemical characteristics. The farm is quite powerful in agricultural activity and uses intensive growing technologies.

The basic nutrition system at TD Demetra for growing winter rapeseed was as follows: 200 kg of nitroammophoska under pre-sowing cultivation, 300 kg/ha of ammonium nitrate on frozen-thawed soil; two weeks later 160 kg/ha of ammonium sulfate at the start of budding.

The ECOORGANIC trial scheme included:

Budding: ECOLINE Boron (Premium) 1.0 l/ha + ECOLINE Phosphite (K) 1.0 l/ha;

Start of flowering: ECOLINE Boron (Premium) 1.0 l/ha + ECOLINE Magnesium (Chelates) 1.0 l/ha;

Pod development: ECOLINE Oilseed (Chelates) 2.0 l/ha.

Even with powerful basic fertilization with macroelements, foliar feeding promoted the formation of stronger plants in height, mass and number of flowering branches. The appearance of control plants and plants of the trial variant is clearly visible in the photo.

At the start of seed browning in the pod a second interim assessment was carried out, the results of which are given in table 4.

As the assessments showed, the positive trend in rapeseed yield formation persisted later too, as confirmed by the harvest results (table 5).