Productivity of cover crops and perennial grass mixtures at different sowing times in the forest-steppe zone of Western Siberia

In the forest-steppe of Western Siberia, studies were conducted on the productivity of legumegrass mixtures of perennial grasses under different cover crops—barley and a grain legume mixture (oats, barley, wheat, peas, and vetch) (experiment No. 1). The grass mixture was developed and implemented at the educational farm of NGAU “Tulinskoye.” The studied cover crops were used for the production of grain silage. The structural characteristics of the barley stand and the grain legume mixture differed significantly. According to the results from two trials in 2007 and 2008, the density of the barley stand ranged from 189 to 201 plants/m². The density of the grasses in the grass-legume mixture was over 300 plants/m². Grass species in the mixtures were taller compared to barley in monoculture. For instance, the height of barley in the variant where the cover crop mixture included galega and costrzec was 60 cm, while in the grain mixture it was 80 cm. A similar difference was noted in other variants. The denser and taller stand of the grain legume mixture compared to barley accounts for the higher yield of the grain legume mixture, with values of 3.52 and 2.0 t/ha of absolute dry matter, respectively. However, the denser and taller stand of the grain mixture had a suppressive effect on the grass-legume mixtures of the cover crops. This had an impact on the yield of the perennial grass mixtures in the following years of their growth. Thus, on average, across the two trials in 2007 and 2008, the yield under the cover of the grain mixture was significantly lower than under the cover of barley. For instance, the yield of the alfalfa +bromus inermis mixture under barley as the cover crop was 4.42 t/ha of absolute dry matter, while under the grain mixture it was 3.91 t/ha. A slight difference was also observed in other grass mixtures. According to the data from the next experiment (experiment No. 2), where the productivity of perennial grass mixtures was studied under barley as the cover crop, the average results from the trials in 2017 and 2018 indicated that the productivity of the cover crop was higher with spring sowing. The productivity of perennial grasses in subsequent years is approximately the same with spring and summer sowing.

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