PRODUCTIVITY AND COMPOSITION OF GRASSLANDS FOR PASTURE USE IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE EUROPEAN NORTH OF RUSSIA

The scientific work presents the results of 2017–2021, obtained at the experimental field of the Northwestern Dairy Farming and Grassland Management Research Institute in the Vologda region, on the influence of purposefully selected species and varieties of cereals and legumes, complementing festulolium and ryegrass, on the productivity and botanical composition of agrophytocenoses of the European North of the Russian Federation. The soil of the experimental site is sod-podzolic, medium cultivated, medium loamy. The scientific experience consists of 10 variants (including a control consisting of fescue, timothy and bluegrass), the repetition is threefold. Observations and records were carried out according to the methods generally accepted in forestry at the V.R. Williams Research Institute of Forage. The processing of yield data will be carried out by the method of variance analysis described in the "Methodology of field experience" by B.A. Dospekhov. It was found that on average, over 4 years of research on cereal grass with the use of fertilizers, productivity was 6.1–7.2 tons of dry weight, the content of feed units was 5.0–5.8 thousand, digestible protein 0.7–0.8 tons, metabolic energy 610–72.0 GJ per hectare. On legumes and cereals grass stands with the inclusion of meadow and creeping clover, the production indicators were: dry the weight is 8.2–8.4 tons, the metabolic energy is 84.8–87.6 GJ, the collection of feed units is 7.1–7.3 thousand and crude protein is 1.1–1.6 tons per hectare.