Effects of site-specific seeding technologies on winter wheat productivity, energy consumption and environment

Abstract

The technological process of seeding is very important in the production of cereals because seed germination, growth, yield and its qualitative parameters depend on the quality of seeding. Variable rate and variable depth precision seeding technology is relatively new and has many unanswered questions. The aim of this work was to investigate the influence of precision seeding of winter wheat according to variable rate and variable depth on grain yield, to evaluate different technological processes of seeding in terms of agronomical, energy and environmental aspects, and to compare the obtained results with conventional seeding technology. Experimental field studies were conducted in 2020–2023 using conventional uniform seeding and fertilization rates (URS) and different precision seeding technologies such as variable rate seeding (VRS), variable rate seeding and variable depth (VRSD), and variable rate seeding, variable depth and variable rate fertilization technologies (VRSD+VRF). Precision seeding was performed using a variable rate seeding map generated from soil electrical conductivity data obtained by field surface scanning with the apparent soil electrical conductivity instrument EM-38 MK2 (Geonics Ltd, Canada). The results of experimental studies showed that the highest winter wheat grain yield in the first research year was achieved in the VRS technology (7.78 Mg ha-1), in the second – in the VRSD technology (8.74 Mg ha-1), and in the third – in the VRSD+VRF technology (4.64 Mg ha-1). The energy and environmental analysis reported that the best energy and environmental efficiency results were achieved using the same VRSD technology, with the highest energy efficiency ratio (8.81) and the best GHG emission efficiency ratio (10.31), and the lowest environmental pollution per ton of winter wheat grain produced. In the development of innovative and environmentally sustainable winter wheat production, it is very important to find the right balance between the benefits to the farmer and the damage to the environment.