Spring rain promises an excellent harvest

Sowing in the Chelyabinsk region is approaching the equator. Periodic rains, although slowing down planting, have become a real gift for farmers after a two-year drought. New locally produced sowing equipment helps farmers make up for lost time due to long-awaited rainfall. Today, the number one task is to meet the agronomic deadlines and save precious moisture.
According to operational data as of May 20, 47% of the planned arable land was sown with spring crops, which is 840 thousand hectares, including grain crops - 545 thousand hectares, oilseeds - 242 thousand hectares. According to the regional Ministry of Agriculture, farmers are working at the highest possible pace: over the past day, almost 70,000 hectares have been sown in the region, and a total of 1,775,000 hectares need to be sown this spring.
A significant amount of work in a short time allows high-performance modern wide-cut equipment. In the fields of the Southern Urals, agricultural machines manufactured at the South Ural factories are becoming more widespread.
— Despite the imposed sanctionsand the withdrawal of a number of foreign companies from the Russian market, our farmers continue to purchase agricultural equipment,” says Sergey Plotnikov, head of the technical policy department of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Chelyabinsk Region. — The pace of technical innovation this year is higher than last year. Since the beginning of the year, the region's farmers have purchased 105 tractors, 24 grain and 2 forage harvesters, 308 units of other agricultural machinery. This is 20% more than last year. Our agricultural machinery enterprises, Varnaagromash, Chelyabinsk Compressor Plant, Traktor, Zarya, and Spetselevatormelmontazh, help us with the renewal of the agricultural machinery fleet.
Farmer Karakul Zhanabayev from the Troitsky district will sow 2,200 hectares of soft and durum wheat, flax, and buckwheat in the spring. Last year, despite the severe drought, he managed to collect 15 centners of grain per hectare, while other farms in the south of the region collected 5-7 centners per hectare. The farmer hopes that this year's harvest will be much better, because the weather has finally brought the desired rains.
But the dry years taught us a lot: first of all, to use moisture and soil-saving technologies. For several years, the farmer has been working on a no-till system, or "zero seeding", in which mechanical tillage (plowing) of the soil is replaced by stubble sowing and chemical protection of plants from weeds and pests. An important element of the technology is the preservation of autumn crop residues on the field. Every year, the layer of crushed dry plants covering the soil increases, protecting it from wind erosion, overheating, and moisture evaporation.
In order to properly sow in unplowed land in the spring, special equipment is needed.
— I became a farmer in 2004, we started with Omichka planters. These are machines where a paw is used as a working body. It cuts weeds, which is good as a mechanical tillage and inexpensive, but there is a lot of moisture loss. I think that the best option is our regional equipment, which takes into account our peculiarities.
Successfully carried out spring sowing is a guarantee of friendly seedlings and a good harvest. Today, on the farm of Karakul Zhanabaev, sowing is carried out using two sowing units manufactured at the Chelyabinsk enterprise Spetselevatormelmontazh. Sowing complexes are designed for zero sowing technology, up to 150 hectares are sown per day.
“Our technology differs in that the sowing depth is constant for all crops. The only thing that changes is the depth of the furrow in which the seed is located. The machine can create a furrow up to 20 centimeters deep, at the bottom of which the anchor coulter closes the seeds already to a constant depth of 2-3 centimeters. This always ensures friendly seedlings,” says Evgeny Kravchenko, Development Director of Spetselevatormelmontazh LLC. — Our company is part of a group of enterprises that are engaged in agriculture. There are sown areas in the Kurgan region. We started to deal with this issue when we realized that traditional technologies are not suitable for the South Urals. So we ended up first in Australia in 2014, then in Kazakhstan, where zero seeding technology was also used. But there were no cars on the market at that time, which would be suitable for our area. They were all made for North or South America, for Europe. Therefore, such an idea appeared - to make your own seeder. We think we have succeeded. Now we are finalizing the bunker for grain and fertilizers and are expanding production.
Today, Spetselevatormelmontazh sells about 20 seeders a year. They also produce other attachments, as well as equipment for elevators. A new workshop is being built at the Chelyabinsk enterprise, which will double the production of agricultural machinery. Another problem is that there are parts that domestic manufacturers cannot produce yet. Localization of production today has reached 90%, it remains to replace another 10%. To do this, the nomenclature of the necessary details was submitted to the My Business Center for Entrepreneurship, the work of which is supervised by the Ministry of Economic Development of the region.
Anchor seeders, which have come to replace the traditional ones, are increasingly found in the fields of South Urals.
— Scientists and practitioners of the agro-industrial association "Muza" and the South Ural State Agrarian University worked on our seeder. It has received two patents. We have tried to provide everything you need. Many anchor planters are not equipped with discs, and this is important, because it cuts crop residues, distributes them evenly. We have applied targeted rolling,” adds Evgeny Kravchenko.
Karakul Zhanabaev appreciated the advantages of the Chelyabinsk seed drill in practice. He believes that it was this technique that allowed him to collect 15 centners of grain per hectare last year. In the Chelyabinsk region, more than 300 thousand hectares of farmland are sown using zero technology, mainly in the southern territories, where the moisture deficit is felt most acutely. This year, spring precipitation actually saved the situation, and yet last fall, in many areas, moisture reserves in a meter-long layer of soil were critical: less than 20% of the norm.
By the seventh of June in the Chelyabinsk region, the sowing of the main crops should be completed. But even now, the first friendly shoots delight farmers and give hope for a rich harvest.

Press Center of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Chelyabinsk Region