THE NEW MAIZE HYBRID ‘ZERNOGRADSKY 299 MB’ OF GRAIN AND SILAGE USE

Changing climatic conditions and the loss of immunity to diseases and pests of the developed varieties make breeding work to create new genotypes of great necessity. The new middle-early maize hybrid ‘Zernogradsky 299 MB’ of universal direction of economic use (for grain and green fodder) has been developed in the “Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy”. The hybrid is three-linear; it belongs to the varieties with crown yellow grain Zea mays L. indentata. It possesses high values of the main economically valuable traits. The average grain productivity through 3 years of competitive variety testing (2014–2016) was 5.36 t/ha, the variety yield exceeded the standard variety ‘Zernogradsky 291 AMB’ on 0.41 t/ha (8.3%). The average productivity of green mass is 27.6 t / ha, which is higher than that of the standard variety on 2.4 t/ha (9.5%). The new hybrid is resistant to lodging (2.1% of lodged plants), drought-resistant, resistant to smut on a natural background (0.4% of affected plants), has a high starch percentage (71.9%). In 2018, according to the results of the State Variety Testing, a new hybrid was introduced into the State List and approved for use in the Central Blackearth and NizheVolzhsky regions to cultivate it for grain and green fodder. It has a high potential for grain productivity. The maximum yield (11.23 t/ha) was obtained in the Central Blackearth region on the Oboyansk plot of the Kursk region, which is higher than the standard variety ‘Voronezhsky 279 CB’ on 2.03 t/ha (22.1%) with lower grain harvesting moisture (on 1,6%) than the standard variety.