Triticale Breeding for Green Feed on the Don
The paper presents the results of breeding work with fodder triticale in the Federal Rostov Agrarian Scientific Center for 2012-2018. The volume of the research was 5,000-6,000 genotypes annually. In the control nursery, up to 300 constant lines were studied (2-3 replications), in competitive trials, it was 20-25 varieties in each one (3 replications). The breeding nursery was laid with unthreshed ears by a special seeder (10,000 samples). Along with traditional selections from heterogeneous samples of the VIR collection and other sources that are ecologically-geographically distant, in the conditions of growing droughts, the involvement of local material with co-adapted gene associations in crossing was of overwhelming importance. This allowed us to purposefully enhance the intensity of economically valuable traits and increase the adaptability and productivity of developed new genotypes using the stepwise hybridization method (under the pressure of limiting factors and selections). On this basis, in the Federal Rostov Agrarian Scientific Center, triticale varieties of fodder directions were developed with different terms of the onset of technological maturity of green mass (Allegro, Agraf, Tornado, in recent years: Argo, Styuard, etc.) in combination with high productivity (70-90 t/ha). They are admitted for cultivation in different zones of the Russian Federation. Styuard variety was transferred on the State variety test. In competitive variety test, the productivity of its green mass was at the level of 82.9 t/ha after fallow on average for 2015-2017. The excess over Agraf variety was 5.8 t/ha. After legumes, the excess was 8.6 t/ha. The harvest of dry matter of the new variety was 38.0 t/ha and 25.6 t/ha, respectively, for these forecrops.