Abstract
The research was carried out in the soil and climatic conditions of the Kirov region. The aim of the research was to study the forage productivity of zoned cultivars of winter rye – ‘Vyatka 2’, ‘Falenskaya 4’ and ‘Flora’, and to identify optimal mowing times that ensure maximum harvesting of green mass with high nutritional value. The research was conducted for 6 years (2019, 2020, 2022–2025). Mowing of the green mass was carried out in 3 phases of vegetation: booting (May 15–22), flag leaf (May 24 – June 6) and heading (May 29 – June 19). It has been established that the yield of green mass increases in the phases of cultivation – from 6.05–8.14 t/ha in the booting phase to 20.27–25.13 t/ha in the heading phase. The cultivar ‘Vyatka 2’ showed the highest productivity in harvesting green mass (17.29 t/ha) and dry mass (3.81 t/ha). The cultivar ‘Flora’ demonstrated the yield in harvesting green mass at the level of the high–stemmed ‘Vyatka 2’ cultivar (16.24 t/ha), while the cultivar ' Falenskaya 4’ significantly lagged behind both cultivars, yielding 13.61 t/ha. The height of the plants and their foliage varied by the cultivars and phases of vegetation. During the booting stage, not all cultivars reached the cutting stage: the height of the ‘Vyatka 2’ cultivar was 46 cm, while the ‘Falenskaya 4’ and ‘Flora’ cultivars reached only 33 cm. By the flag leaf stage, the height of all cultivars had doubled, and by the heading stage, it had increased by additional 1.5 times. Overall, the ‘Falenskaya 4’ and ‘Flora’ cultivars remained 28–31 % shorter than ‘Vyatka 2’. The correlation coefficients between the plant height and green mass yield ranged from 0.81 to 0.90. The leafiness at mowing in the early spring growing season was high (‘Vyatka 2’ – 77 %, ‘Falenskaya 4’ – 80 %, ‘Flora’ – 79 %) and decreased 1.7–2.1 times by the heading stage (to 36 %, 44 and 46 % respectively). Biochemical analysis revealed that the content of protein and fiber, as well as the levels of phosphorus and calcium, varied depending on the cultivar and the mowing date. There was a tendency for protein and calcium levels to be higher in early sampling periods, while the proportion of fiber and phosphorus increased in later green mass harvests.