Productivity of the spring barley variety ‘Leon’ in dependence of weather conditions of the southern part of the Rostov region

The research was carried out in 2012-2016 in FSBSI All-Russian Research Institute of Grain Crops after I.G. Kalinenko (the laboratory of primary seed-growing and study of seed), located in the southern soil-climatic area of the Rostov region, characterized with unstable and insufficient humidity. The soil of the experimental plot is calcareous heavy loam blacksoil (chernozem), the object of the study is the spring barley variety ‘Leon’ 9introduced into the State List of Breeding Achievements of RF since 2012). The agroclimatic conditions during the years of study significantly differed in the amount of precipitation (from 96.8 mm in 2013 to 249.8 mm in 2015), in temperature regime (from 1923.90C in 2012 to 1721.90C in 2014), that gave an opportunity to evaluate the productivity of the spring barley variety ‘Leon’. The article deals with the study results of the effect of meteorological conditions on the length of vegetation period, productivity of the main element of yield structure of spring barley, i.e. number of productive stems per m2, kernel weight per head, number of kernels per head and 1000-seed weight. We have determined the correlation between the sum of active temperatures, average daily temperature of air, amount of precipitation, relative air humidity and hydrothermal co-efficient (HTC) during the vegetation period and the main economic-valuable traits of spring barley. The sum of precipitation (r=+0.81) and HTC (r=+0.82) had a strong positive effect on the length of a vegetation period. The relative air humidity showed a strong correlation with the number of productive stems per m2 (r=0.87). The meteorological conditions had a slight effect on the productivity; there were average positive and negative correlations. The study determined a sum of active temperatures and precipitation at which the largest yields could be produced.