THE NEW SAINFOIN VARIETY ‘SHURAVI’, ITS FEED PRODUCTIVITY AND VALUE AS A FORECROP

The paper discusses the results of long-term research in the competitive variety testing of the sainfoin variety ‘Shuravi’, introduced into the State List of breeding achievements and approved for use in 2019 in the North Caucasus and Nizhne-Volga regions of Russia.The sainfoin variety ‘Shuravi’ is a complex hybrid species obtained by the methods of individual-family selection and polycross followed by massive negative selection. According to the most morphological and biological characteristics, the variety has been assigned to the Transcaucasian species. The plants are of tall height (95-105 cm). The bush is semi-upright (40%), upright (40%) and semi-sprawling (20%). The root system is vertical with a well-defined main root. The stalk is rough, thick and hollow inside. The kernels are of medium size, mainly with spines. 1000 kernel weight is 18–20 g. The vegetation period ‘sprouts – full ripeness’ is 85–90 days, and the mowing ripeness of the green mass is 45–55 days. According to resistance to major diseases, the variety is not inferior to the standard variety ‘Zernogradsky 2’. The productivity of ‘Shuravi’ green mass during the State variety testing was on 9.6% higher than that of the standard variety, dry matter was on 14.7% higher and seed productivity was on 17.6% higher. In the following years of study in a competitive variety testing, the variety ‘Shuravi’ exceeded the standard variety on 10.3% in green mass productivity and on 9.8% in dry matter. According to the yield of fodder units per 1 hectare, raw and digestible protein, the variety exceeded the standard on 17.0, 15.7 and 16.1% respectively. Exchange energy content per 1 kg of dry matter and supply of a fodder unit with digestible protein in the variety ‘Shuravi’ was at the standard level.The use of the sainfoin variety ‘Shuravi’ as a green fertilizer makes it possible to cover fresh standard organic matter on 9.8–14.7% and nitrogen on 1.8–2.4 kg more compared with the standard; the percentage of phosphorus and potassium is the same as with the standard variety ‘Zernogradsky 2’. In general, when using sainfoin green mass as green manure, soil is supplied with much more such basic nutrients as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium than when applying the same amount of good quality manure.