The study results of the winter soft wheat varieties of various ecological and geographical origin in the south of the Rostov region

The improvement of grain production is the most important global task. The introduction of new highly productive varieties of the leading grain crop, winter wheat, plays a huge role in its solution. The paper presents the study results of 80 winter soft wheat varieties of various ecological and geographical origin. Frost and winter resistance rise of the developed winter soft wheat genotypes today and in the nearest future is one of the main directions of breeding work. The preservation of highly productive winter soft wheat varieties varied from 0.0% to 78.3% at a freezing temperature of –19 °C. The varieties “Kaprizulya”, “Lilit”, “Zhavoronok”, “Lydia”, “Krasa Dona”, “Polina”, “Volnitsa” and “Volny Don”, developed in the Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy” have the highest frost resistance among the studied samples, they preserved 57.0 ... 78.3% of living plants. Grain productivity of the samples ranged from 6.36 to 8.90 t/ha in 2015–2017. The 16 out of 80 studied varieties reliably (НСР 05 = 0.64 t/ha) exceeded the standard variety “Don 107” for this trait. Productivity of the best samples ranged from 8.14 t/ha (“СО 911”) to 8.90 t / ha (“Laureat”). The biological productivity of winter soft wheat varieties varied from 8.37 to 9.07 t/ha, exceeding the standard variety from 0.67 t/ha (“СО 911”) to 1.37 t/ha (“Laureat”). It should be noted that the correlation coefficient of actual and biological productivity was 0.84±0.06. As a result of the current study, there were identified the genotypes “Lydia”, “Volnitsa” and “Zhavoronok” combining high productivity, grain quality and resistance to low negative temperatures.