Development of biologically engineered corn growing technologies

Abstract

Agricultural producers use large quantities of mineral fertilisers and plant protection products, which leads to soil, seed and environmental pollution and reduces the profitability of production. Modern agriculture starts to shift its focus to biologisation, which includes the development and implementation of environmentally friendly alternative systems, the reduction of chemicals, the introduction of energy and resource-saving technologies, use of biological plant protection products and bio-organic fertilisers. The research aims to investigate the effectiveness of biological technologies for growing maize in an environmentally friendly way using various organic fertilisers. The following methods were used to study the new corn growing technology: analysis, synthesis, analogy, comparison, and generalisation; field and laboratory; calculation – assessment of economic and bioenergy efficiency. To study the effect of organic fertilisers of different biological origins on the assessment of the humus state of typical chernozems, field experiments were conducted to assess the impact on corn grain yield in the Ukrainian Steppe. After the application of organic fertiliser, the limits of organic carbon content in humus were 3.2-3.5%, humic acid 1.9-2.2%, and fulvic acid 0.7-1.0%. In the experimental samples of maize grain, the content of crude protein ranged from 13.5 to 14.0%, crude fat from 2.4 to 2.7%, crude fibre from 2.1 to 2.4%, crude ash from 1.3 to 1.7%, and nitrogen-free extractives from 64.7 to 67.4%, moisture from 12.0 to 14.9%. The grain yield in the control variant was 9.7 t/ha, and in the experimental plots, it was 11.5-13.4 t/ha. The data obtained can help in the development of biologically based maize cultivation technology following the ecological gradient of cultivation and yield with optimisation of the studied agrotechnical methods