Production and Economic Effects of Environmentally Friendly Spring Wheat Production Technology

The aim of the present study was to evaluate yield, grain quality characteristics, and cost-effectiveness of different crop protection methods in the cultivation of spring wheat using two levels of mineral fertilization of crops. The study shows that the combined application of the herbicide Lintur 70 WG (dicamba and triasulfuron) with ethephon or chlormequat chloride did not adversely affect spring wheat productivity. The highest yield was obtained in the treatment with intensive fertilization (5.18 t ha(-1)) and in the treatments with the application of herbicide in combination with ethephon (5.26 t ha(-1)). The chemical crop protection methods caused significant differences in grain test weight. In turn, mineral fertilization modified all the studied grain quality characteristics. An analysis of the indicators used to evaluate the economic effects of the spring wheat production technologies investigated showed a clear advantage of the lower intensity technology over the more intensive technologies, which should be associated with the high costs of mineral fertilization that were not compensated by the yields obtained. In analyzing the production and economic effects, treatment with the application of the herbicide in combination with ethephon under basic mineral fertilization conditions proved to be most beneficial.