Buckwheat

The data about influence of Albit on buckwheat are reported in 9-th Buckwheat International Congress: Ziotnikov A. K., Stefanina S. A., Kirsanova E. V., Glazova Z. I. (2004) Influence of biopreparation Albit on sowing characteristics and yield qualities of buckwheat seeds. In: Advances in Buckwheat Research. Proc. 9th Int. Symp. on Buckwheat, Prague, August 18 22, 2004. Prague. p. 499-500.

Influence of Albit on buckwheat was examined in trials conducted by All-Russia Institute of Leguminous and Groat Crops of Orjol oblast. The trials were conducted in 2002-2003 with buckwheat cultivar. Dikul.

According to results of trials, effectiveness of Albit was not inferior to that of potassium humate (chemical standard). In these trials, Albit increased:

• yield by 2.6-4.1 centners/hectare;
• weight of 1000 seeds by 1–4%;
• weight of seeds from one plant averagely by 33.8%.

• germination by 4–7%;
• development of rootage by 3–12%;
• drought resistance (yield increase up to 50 % in extremely dry conditions).

Yield increase of buckwheat under influence of Albit might reach averagely up to 44.9% over control. Possibly, it occurs because the high yield potential of buckwheat is not revealed yet. The real productivity is still lag behind of biological potential; buckwheat is considerably inferior to all crops in terms of yield and yield stability. The average yield of buckwheat in Russia in 1994 was just 4.4 centners/hectare. However, buckwheat is able to provide yield of 25-30 centners/hectare and even more. The causes of low yield despite of high biological potential take great attention of scientists for a long time.

There are virtually two groups of causes of low yield, agrotechnical and biological ones. Agrotechnical causes are:

• buckwheat sowing over inappropriate of contaminated predecessors;
• insufficient weed control before buckwheat sowing;
• lack of mineral nutrients
• bad timed sowing;
• poor care of plants;
• lack of pollinizers;
• grain losses at harvesting.

Biological causes are:

• Low seed carrying capacity even in case of abundant blossoming (only 10-15% of flowers turn to seeds) that is due to dying off of greater part of generative organs both before and after fertilization. It is because of growth of buckwheat vegetative organs proceeds simultaneously with growth of generative organs which might suffer of lack of nutrients.
• Leaf surface per one flower of buckwheat even at maximal foliage 1.5-3 times less than that of spring wheat.
• Comparing to overground biomass, buckwheat rootage is weakly developed and is unable to provide big amount of flowers and seeds with water and nutrients.

Albit helps to overcome the ‘native disadvantages’ of buckwheat: it improves rootage, increases overground biomass/foliage growth (averagely by 18.9%). Moreover, Albit stimulates supplying of generative organs with nutrients (see here). As a consequence, Albit helps to realize the high potential of productivity. In addition, Albit increases drought resistance that increases yield in droughty years up to 50% in field conditions.

Application recommendations:

According to results of trials, the most effective way of Albit application is presowing treatment; application rate of Albit is 50 ml/tonne (consumption of working solution is 15 L/tonne). Cost of treatment is 110 roubles(4.4 USD)/tonne of seeds. Since sowing rate of buckwheat is 70 kg/hectare, treatment takes just 3.5 ml of Albit per hectare, that corresponds to 7.7 roubles (0.3 USD).

Despite presowing seed treatment of buckwheat is considered to be the main one, according to data from farms of Altai kray, foliar spraying in first half of vegetation period (40 ml/hectare) is also effective.

Economical efficiency:

In conducted trials Albit demonstrated high economical efficiency. According to data of All-Russia Institute of Leguminous and Groat Crops (2003), the net profit of Albit application to buckwheat is 2150-2200 roubles(87-88 USD)/hectare. Each rouble invested to Albit treatment brings back 6.14-11 roubles of profit.

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