Impact of some agricultural elements of cultivation technology on the efficiency of sunflower cultivation in the steppe zone conditions of Kabardino-Balkaria
The article presents the results of longterm (2016-2018) studies conducted on the Ciscauca-sian (carbonate) chernozems of the steppe zone of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. The efficiency (technical - the degree of weed suppression, economic -the yield of sunflower oil seeds, economic - the revenue from the sale of products, the amount of net income, cost, profitability, etc.) of some elements in sunflower cultivation technologies has been studied. A high degree of weed suppression in the crops of the studied sunflower varieties has been proven using normal (63.0-77.6%) and intensive (82.5-91.4%) technologies by the end of the growing season of the crop. In the variant with extensive technology, this indicator did not exceed 60.8 % in the variety Lakomka and 43.3% of weed death in the va- riety Belochka. The crude aboveground mass of weeds, determined 30 days after the treatment of sowings, was also the smallest in variants with normal (35.0-43.0 g/m<sup>2</sup>) and intensive (15.0-35.0 g/m<sup>2</sup>) agrotechnologies. On the background of extensive technology, these results exceeded 87.0 and 93.0 g/m<sup>2</sup>, respectively, for sunflower varieties. The different degree of contamination of sowings had an impact on the yield of sunflower oil seeds. Therefore, in the variant with extensive technology, it did not exceed 2.1 and 1.8 t/ha in the Lakomka and Belochka, respectively. On the background of normal and intensive technologies, these data were 2.7-3.5 t/ha for the Lakomka and 2.5-2.8 t/ha for the Belochka, respectively. In a production test (2020) conducted with sunflower sowings of the Lakomka variety, the high economic efficiency of intensive technology with a seed yield of 2.9 t/ha at a gross product value of 72.5 thousand rubles/ha with a net income of 37.0 thousand rubles/ha and a profitability of 104.0% was confirmed. For the variant with normal technology, gross output in monetary terms amounted to 57.5 thousand rubles/ha with a net income of 33.8 thousand rubles/ha with a profitability of 143.0%. On the variant of extensive technology, the gross product value was 35.0 thousand rubles/ha with the amount of production costs of 18.6 thousand rubles/ha. Under these conditions, both the amount of net income (16.4 thousand rubles/ha) and profitability (88.0%) of production were the lowest.