STRIP SEEDING OF GRASS IN MEADOWS

For the successful development of animal husbandry in Ukraine, it is necessary to increase the area of pastures for which it is necessary to lend some of the arable land and re-plant some of the existing pastures, creating cultural pastures with a productivity of 60-80 c. fodder units per hectare. For rejuvenation of existing grasslands, the technology of direct sowing with minimal tillage is increasingly used. These technologies include operations to suppress existing grasses and sow the seeds of valuable fodder grasses into grooves specially prepared in the turf. Domestic and foreign experience shows that sowing herbs in pre-treated strips is more effective than traditional methods. The traditional technology of re-insulation of such bows is associated with considerable energy and labor costs and is also erosion-hazardous in areas with a slope angle exceeding 3%. Therefore, for such areas it is necessary to use re-salting technology without completely destroying the turf and to use special seeders of different designs, which perform in one pass the strip tillage, sowing of grass seeds and sealing. Therefore, this method of redevelopment is highly productive and therefore promising in Ukraine. The idea of sowing grass seeds in a cultivated strip of soil in the turf is the basis of the technology of direct accelerated grassland re-grassing. The cultivated strip of soil must meet the agrotechnical requirements for the quality of cultivation in growing grasses. The implementation of the proposed technology of direct strip sowing of grasses in the existing herbage is possible only in the presence of perfect working bodies. Foreign and domestic seeders intended for direct sowing of herbs in the turf do not fully meet the agrotechnical requirements for the quality of processing of the turf strip, so the technology of direct sowing with a developed, active working body in the form of a cutter is proposed.

Impact of Various Grass Species on Soil Bacteriobiome

Today, various grass species are important not only in animal feeding but, increasingly often, also in energetics and, due to esthetic and cultural values, in landscape architecture. Therefore, it is essential to establish the roles various grass species and their functional forms play in modifying soil bacteriobiome and enzymatic activity. To this end, a pot experiment was conducted to examine effects of various fodder grass and lawn grass species on the bacteriobiome and biochemical properties of soil. Nonsown soil served as the control for data interpretation. Analyses were carried out with standard and metagenomic methods. The intensity of effects elicited by grasses depended on both their species and functional form. More favorable living conditions promoting the development of soil bacteria and, thereby, enzymatic activity were offered by fodder than by lawn grass species. Among the fodder grasses, the greatest bacteriobiome diversity was caused by sowing the soil with Phleum pratense (Pp), whereas among lawn grasses in the soil sown with Poa pratensis (Pr). Among the fodder grasses, the highest enzymatic activity was determined in the soil sown with Lolium x hybridum Hausskn (Lh), and among the lawn grasses—in the soil sown with Lolium perenne. Sowing the soil with grasses caused the succession of a population of bacterial communities from r strategy to k strategy.

CONSTRUCTIVE FEATURES OF THE DEVICE FOR TREATING FODDER GRASSES IN THE PROCESS OF MOWING

For the treatment of fodder grasses during mowing on modern mowers install various conditioners designed to accelerate their wilting. The most extended among them are pressing rollers and shafts, equipped, as a rule, with various hammer-type beats. However, these conditioners installed on rotary mowers have a difficult drive, high mass and price. It is possible to eliminate these lacks by the use of a new conditioner [1], developed in the Federal Williams Research Center for Fodder Production and Agroecology (Moscow region), and equipped with beats for mechanical action on the stalks of grasses in the process of mowing. Beats are represent a pieces of round-link chains fixed in the upper part of cylindrical hollow drums installed vertically on the cutting discs of the rotary mower. The innovative dynamic action conditioner to the rotary mower KR-2,4M provides acceleration of field drying of the mowed grasses due to strengthening of moisture output by plants, especially the traumatized stalks which usually dry more slowly, than leaves. The constructive features of the conditioner and the principle of its action are described.

Genetic diversity of forage grasses as source material for breeding

The aim was to include new accessions of perennial leguminous and cereal grasses to the collection, to evaluate them in terms of a set of valuable morphological and economic features and to identify sources of these features for breeding. Results and Discussion. The collections of gene pool accessions created due to introduction of cultivars and wild forms as well as breeding accessions identified during practical breeding serve as initial material for the breeding of red clover, alsike clover and cock's-foot in the Institute of Agriculture of the Carpathian Region. For the period of 2000-2017, 944 accessions of forage grasses registered in the Central Database were included in the collection: 405 legumes (red clover – 161, alsike clover – 11) and 539 cereals (cock's-foot – 145); 591 accessions were stored in the National Depository. In-depth studies of morphological and economic traits of the accessions allowed us to create and to register a basic collection of the forage grasses gene pool, a trait collection of red clover for yield and resistance to powdery mildew (it includes 52 accessions from 5 countries), a trait collection of cock's-foot for yield and resistance to unfavorable factors (49 accessions from 8 countries) and to register valuable red clover accession No. 193 and cock's-foot accession Drogobychanka Piznia with the NCPGRU. Based on the collection accessions, cultivars were created and included in the State Register of Plant Varieties Suitable for Dissemination in Ukraine: red clover Truskavchanka since 2016, alsike clover Prydnistrovska since 2002, cock's-foot Marichka since 2014. Since 2015, red clover cultivar Ukrainochka and cock's-foot cultivar Boikivchanka have been tested in the state scientific expert evaluation. Conclusions. The creation of the genetic resource collection allowed us to study and analyze the genetic potential of the species, to identify initial material with valuable economical traits, which will significantly increase the efficiency of fodder grasses breeding.