Testing oil crop - noog (<i>Guizotia abyssinica </i>Cass.)
Niger seed (noog) ( Guizotia abyssinica Cass.) is a new oil crop for Russia, having the number of economically important traits. Therefore cultivation of this poorly studied plant allows increasing biodiversity and improving collection of introduced field crops. Paper deals with field trial data on noog cultivation in 2005-2008 and 2016 in the Volgograd and Penza regions. Fattyacid composition of oil seeds is presented. Noog was cultivated under diﬀerent climatic conditions. Experiments, conducted on leached chernozem in the Volgograd and Penza regions showed better quality of noog oil compared to the one of sunflower. Trials in Penza Agricultural Research Institute revealed that wide-row planting provided oil yield of 56.5 g m-2, exceeding the row seeding by 11.2 g. Productivity in that case were higher by 26.7 g m-2 than under row sowing. Preliminary trials for new introduced crop determined its advantages over other oil crops. In prospect niger seed can be cultivated in other regions of Russia, including North Ossetia-Alania. Data, obtained under various climatic conditions, proposes noog to be a promising crop as an alternative to sunflower due to the number of advantages over the latter.