The use of herbicides for cultivation of the maize hybrid “Zernogradsky 354 MV” in the south of the Rostov region

The field trials were conducted in 2017–2019 in the laboratory for cultivation technologies of row crops in the FSBSI “Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy”. The experimental plots were located in the southern soil-climatic zone of the Rostov region characterized with insufficient and unstable moisture. The soil of the experimental plots was heavy-loamy ordinary blackearth (chernozem) on forestry loams with 3.2% of humus, fertilized with 18.5 – 20.0 mg/kg of P2O5 and 342 – 360 mg/kg of K2O. The current paper has presented the study results of the effect of herbicides on middle ripening maize hybrid “Zernogradsky 354 MV”, included in the State List of RF in 2010. The used herbicides had a positive effect on reducing the contamination of maize sowings with monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous weeds (90% decrease), which contributed to an improvement of grain crop productivity. In the phase of full ripeness, the number of weeds in the experimental variants was 2.7–3.1 times less than in the control variant. The productivity increase in the control variant was 0.55–0.83 t/ha. The largest net income (22 545 rub/ha) was obtained due to the use of the herbicide “Elumis”. The high cost of the preparations negatively affected the cost of production, which exceeded the control variant on 436–519 rubles per ton. The profitability of the applied herbicides was lower than the control variant on 30 and 39%. The grain productivity increase obtained in the trials has paid for the costs of herbicides’ use; the payback amount was 1.15–1.57 rubles.