Statistical assessment of the impact of cultivation technology elements on the dynamics of winter oilseed rape phenological development
Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of the study was a comprehensive assessment of the winter oilseed rape response to agrotechnical factors – sulfur-containing fertilizers, sowing methods, and seeding rates – through the analysis of phenological phase dynamics in the 2024–2025 season. The work is aimed at establishing patterns in the duration of the growing season and identifying adaptive mechanisms of the crop depending on the technological parameters of cultivation.
Methods. Scientific research was based on a three-factor field experiment, where Factor A was mineral nutrition (control without fertilizers and a variant with sulfur-containing fertilizers), Factor B was the sowing method (row spacing of 25 and 60 cm), and Factor C was the plant density (250, 320, and 500 thousand units/ha). The methodological novelty lies in the implementation of an algorithm for transforming calendar dates of phase onset according to the international BBCH scale into quantitative parameters. This allowed the application of analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the mathematical verification of the biological variability of crop development depending on the studied cultivation practices.
Results. Analysis of field monitoring revealed a clear dependence of ontogenesis rates on nutritional conditions. In unfertilized variants, an accelerated progression of developmental stages was observed, leading to an earlier onset of the main phenophases compared to fertilized variants. This trend is interpreted as a protective reaction to nutrient deficiency ("forced" maturation). The application of sulfur-containing fertilizers improved nutritional conditions, which shifted the onset of final developmental stages to later dates and increased the total vegetation duration to 205–210 days (9–10 days more than the control). Simultaneously, the influence of crop architecture was recorded: with a row spacing of 25 cm, the budding stage occurred 1–2 days faster than at 60 cm, while the maximum seeding rate (500 thousand units/ha) correlated with the earliest completion of the development cycle. Statistical evaluation confirmed the significance of the individual influence of each factor in the absence of their significant combined interaction.
Conclusions. It is proved that the studied agrotechnical factors directly affect the duration of individual phenological phases and the overall growing season of winter oilseed rape. The used algorithm for statistical data processing with the transformation of calendar dates into quantitative indicators allowed, using analysis of variance, to mathematically prove the significance of this influence. The results confirm that the revealed variability in the rates of morphogenesis is not accidental but is a statistically reliable response of the crop to changes in nutritional conditions and the structure of the agrophytocenosis. This substantiates the possibility of accurate forecasting of plant development stages when implementing intensification elements.
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