INTEGRATED APPLICATION OF AGROTECHNICAL AND CHEMICAL MEASURES TO COMBAT WEEDS IN TOMATO PLANTINGS

The purpose of the study was to study the effect of agrotechnical measures and herbicides aimed at reducing weed infestation and increasing the productivity of tomato fruits when grown in the Republic of Kalmykia. The most effective was the combined use of agrotechnical and chemical measures to combat weeds, which made it possible to reduce the infestation of tomato plantings of the Podarochny variety by 91.1-94.0%. An increase in the number of cultivations from 3 to 6 (against the background of herbicides) did not lead to a significant decrease in the weediness level. It was revealed that the reduction in the number of inter-row tillage to one had a positive effect on the physical properties of the soil – density, porosity and aggregation were at the control level with manual weeding. Carrying out three to six cultivations increased the density of the soil, respectively, by 0.16-0.20 t/m3, reduced the porosity from 52.0% to 44.8%. With six inter-row tillage, the number of valuable aggregates decreased from 57% to 36%, the coefficient of soil structure - from 1.05 to 0.79. It was found that the combination of agrotechnical and chemical measures provided a significant 40.3-58.3% increase in the yield of tomato fruits, compared with the control, but did not affect their quality. It was revealed that an average of 298 man-hours/ha of net working time was spent on manual weeding. When weeding was combined with triple cultivation, the costs decreased by 58% and amounted to 125 man-hours/ha. In the variants where herbicides were used in combination with inter-row cultivation, the least amount of manual labor was spent on weeding. The cost recovery for chemical weeding with continuous application of herbicides was 0.6 rubles, with tape - 5.3-6.2 rubles.