Kuzbass is fully provided with seeds for spring field work

For spring sowing in 2022, 126.9 thousand tons of seeds are needed, which is 4% more than last year.
“Providing Kuzbass with essential products is a strategic task for our farmers. This is especially important at a time when we are facing unprecedented sanctions. We will increase the production of agricultural products, create new varieties of seeds,” Governor Sergei Tsivilev said.
In autumn, agricultural producers prepared 125.6 thousand tons of grain seeds and 0.19 thousand tons of oilseeds, the missing part is being purchased. Seeds of foreign production are used only by producers of vegetable crops and rapeseed. Contracts for the supply of these seeds were signed back in 2021, they continue to operate, and supply interruptions are not expected. In the case of restrictions on the import of seeds, it is possible to purchase the necessary seeds in seed farms and institutions in the European part of the Russian Federation.
Checking the seed material intended for sowing and planting is carried out by specialists of the branch of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Rosselkhozcenter" in the Kemerovo region-Kuzbass. According to the regional Ministry of Agriculture, as of March 25, 125.6 thousand tons (94.7%) of seeds have already been checked, of which 87 thousand tons (69.3% of the total volume of checked) seeds are conditioned.
“Seeds are checked for purity, germination, moisture, germination energy, the mass of a thousand seeds is determined, and a phytopathological analysis is carried out for disease infestation. As soon as warm weather sets in, work to improve the condition of seeds will accelerate, by the beginning of the sowing season there will be 90-94% of conditioned seeds, ”comments Andrey Aritkulov, Minister of Agriculture and Processing Industry of Kuzbass.
The better the quality of the seeds, the higher the yield, so farmers are recommended to use high quality seeds in their work. In addition, they are reimbursed for the costs of purchased elite seeds of agricultural plant varieties included in the State Register of Breeding Achievements and approved for use in 10 regions. This year it is planned to allocate about 31.4 million rubles from the federal and regional budgets. Work in this direction is bearing fruit: over the past three years, the number of elite seeds in the total volume of used seeds has increased by 5.5%, and the average grain yield has increased from 22.4 c/ha to 25.9 c/ha.
In addition, farmers use seeds of locally bred varieties in their work. Thus, the Kemerovo Research Institute of Agriculture has been working since 1982 to create varieties, improving their quality characteristics, increasing productivity and resistance in difficult weather conditions. Kuzbass scientists have already created about 40 varieties of grain and leguminous crops.
Eight seed farms specializing in the production of seeds of grain crops, industrial crops and potatoes are operating to provide the region's farmers with high-quality seeds. For example, in 2021, Azot Agro LLC (Kemerovo Municipal District) was accredited as a seed farm, a high-performance grain drying complex for drying, cleaning and processing grain with a capacity of 20 tons of seeds per hour was put into operation. Modern elevator-type warehouses with a one-time storage capacity of 9,000 tons of grain have also been built.