Prospects for the wheat-wheatgrass hybrid domestication and introduction into culture

Purpose. To evaluate the prospects for the Kernza wheat-wheatgrass hybrid introduction in the rightbank Forest-Steppe to obtain high-quality fodder through comparing its fodder and seed productivity with the medium-sized Hors wheatgrass of the Institute of Feed Research and Agriculture of Podillya of NAAS selection. Methods. Field (phenological observations, accounting), laboratory (determination of dry matter content, seeds, elements of their structure and zootechnical analysis), mathematical and statistical. Results. According to the results of the research (2020 and 2021) on the natural background of high soil acidity (pH- 4.7-4.8) peculiarities of growth and development of plants of wheat-wheatgrass hybrid of the first and second year of use were established. In particular, more intensive growth of hybrid plants on the 21st day after the beginning of spring regrowth and increase in height after the first and second mowing. It was found that wheatwheatgrass hybrid is more productive in comparison with medium wheatgrass in terms of dry matter yield (1.51 and 1.28 kg/m2 ) and seed yield (102.68 and 78.8 g/m2 ), respectively. It should be noted that the wheatwheatgrass hybrid is characterized by the stability of the above indicators, regardless of weather conditions. The studied species also differed in chemical composition of dry matter, in particular, significantly higher was the content of crude protein in the dry matter of wheat-wheatgrass hybrid – 11.83%, medium wheatgrass – 10.39%. The content of neutral-detergent and acid-detergent fiber in the dry matter of the first wheatwheatgrass hybrid mowing was 51.19 and 33.47%, of the medium wheat – 50.45 and 30.55%. Conclusions. Based on the research, it has been established that wheat-wheatgrass hybrid has significant advantages over medium wheatgrass both in terms of spring regrowth intensity after mowing, plant height, forage and seed productivity, green mass quality indicators, especially in arid conditions, and can be successfully introduced in Ukraine by isolating self-pollinated lines from the studied population according to the set of valuable economic characteristics and creating on their basis a new high-yielding synthetic variety.