The effect of injury on the sowing seed qualities of winter bread wheat varieties during harvesting and post-harvest processing

The current paper has presented the study results for the period of 2020–2022 to determine the effect of injury on the quality indicators of seed material in primary seed production of winter wheat varieties (‘Stanichnaya’, ‘Etyud’, Asket, ‘Lidiya’ and ‘Ambar’) during harvesting and post-harvest processing of seeds. There has been established that at different stages of technology in agricultural machines and grain cleaning equipment, during grain production, there was damage to the seed material. There have been identified certain types of injuries that most significantly worsen the sowing quality of seeds and reduce winter wheat productivity. The purpose of the study was to estimate the sowing seed qualities of winter bread wheat varieties of different maturity groups developed by the FSBSI «ARC «Donskoy» depending on their injury by the combine harvester and grain cleaning machines in the primary stages of seed production. The estimation of the quality of winter wheat seed material was carried out on the material obtained during winter wheat harvesting, such as manual threshing (control), threshing with the combine ‘Wintersteiger Classic’, after seed cleaning and sorting equipment VIM-1 «Selection» and Petkus K-531 «Gigant». When harvesting with the combine ‘Wintersteiger Classic’, two threshing modes were used: 1) recommended – 1500 rpm -1 ; 2) with a reduced speed of the threshing drum – 1000 rpm -1 . There has been found that the highest level of seed injury was observed when threshing with a grain harvester (33–54 %). There has been determined that, depending on the type of the trial, the germination energy indicators varied from 89 to 98 %, and laboratory germination from 94 to 99 %. Caryopsis with damage in the embryo area had a high germination rate in laboratory conditions. With an increase in microtraumas, field germination has decreased by 4–17 % compared to the control. The maximum injury and reduction in field germination of seeds was observed in the varieties of the early maturing group. Post-harvest processing of seeds has led to an increase in the percentage of their injury by 1–6 %, regardless of the type of equipment used.