Green mass productivity and quality of new sweet sorghum varieties in the ARC “Donskoy”

   Introduction. In order to realize productive potential of any crop, a variety is of great importance. There is a number of requirements imposed on modern varieties, including not only productivity and quality, but also
compliance with environmental and climatic conditions, resistance to unfavorable conditions, adaptability to mechanized harvesting.

   The purpose of the current work was to identify effective methods for developing sweet sorghum varieties, to estimate the sweet sorghum varieties developed by the Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy”” according to productivity and quality of green mass for silage.
   Methods. The paper presents the study results on the development and research of new sweet sorghum varieties in the Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy”” (Rostov region) through the years 2019–2021. The soil was an ordinary carbonate chernozem, with 3.6 % of humus in the arable layer. The objects of the study were sweet sorghum varieties. The ways to conduct trials, soil tillage and cultivation, as well as zootechnical analysis of green mass were determined according to generally accepted methods.
   Results. When developing a new variety, a number of characteristicsneeds to be taken into account according to which breeding is carried out from year to year, namely suitability for mechanized harvesting, stem succulence, tillering, stem diameter, length of a vegetation period, sugar content in stem sap, productivity and its main elements, etc. There are such methods for developing sweet sorghum varieties in the Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy”” as hybridization, incubation and selection of constant forms. As a result of the breeding work, there has been developed a number of varieties. In the State List there are 5 varieties of the Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy””. Green mass productivity of the new varieties Yuzhnoe and Feniks was 36 and 42 t/ha, respectively. The sugar-protein ratio of the variety Feniks was normal (1.1 : 1). Silage is recommended to be combined with protein cultures. The yield of exchangeable energy in green mass for silage (for cattle) obtained from new sweet sorghum varieties was 13.5–14.1 MJ/ha.

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