Selection of drought-resistant crops for South Steppe of Ukraine

The cultivation expediency of more drought-resistant crops, in particular sorghum, millet, false flax, safflower and others, instead of sunflower in the area of the Southern Steppe of Ukraine is substantiated. This is, first of all, required by climate change both in Ukraine and in the world. Since 2004, researches of field crops were carried out in the conditions of the Educational and Scientific Practical Center of the Mykolaiv National Agrarian University. Soil phase is the southern chernozem with humus content in the 0–30 cm soil layer which consist of 2.96–3.21 %, with medium and high level of availability of mobile phosphorus and potassium and low – mobile nitrogen. Experiments with soriz (Oksamyt hybrid) were conducted during 2004–2006, millet (Tavriiske, Kostantynivske, Skhidnevarieties) in 2008–2010, grain sorghum (Stepovyi 5 hybrid) in 2014–2016, safflower dye (Lahidnyi variety) in 2017–2019. The years of research differed significantly in temperature and even more in the amount of precipitation before sowing and during the growing season of crops. However, the weather conditions were typical of the Southern Steppe zone of Ukraine. It is established that all studied drought-resistant crops respond positively to nutrition optimization – the level of yield and quality of grain or seeds increases. It was found that the soriz productivity depending on the application of fertilizers and sowing dates increased by 37.6–39.2 %, millet –by 33.3–41.6 %, grain sorghum depending on the background of nutrition and growing conditions – by 8.2–33.2 %, dye safflower – by 11.1–64.6 %. It was determined that the optimization of nutrition of cultivated crops allows to increase their resistance to adverse conditions and productivity in the case of application of low doses of the mineral fertilizers before sowing, pre-sowing treatment of seeds, and growth-regulating chemical application of plants on the main stages of the growing season. Key words: drought-resistant plants, climatic conditions, nutrition optimization, yield, crop quality, varieties, sowing dates.