SELECTION OF SPRING OIL CROPS BEING ALTERNATIVE TO SUNFLOWER FOR THE CONDITIONS OF THE SOUTHERN STEPPE OF UKRAINE AND OPTIMIZATION OF THEIR NUTRITION

The article highlights the state of production of spring oil crops in Ukraine. It is shown that the most common and not justified oil crop by the term of return to the same field of is sunflower. In our country in 2018 this culture was planted on the record area of 6.4 million hectares. While sunflower is economically attractive culture, it is most of all oilseeds adversely affect the basic characteristics of soil fertility, sunflower clogs and dries it. It predetermines to develop technologies of cultivation of less widespread plants which possess high indicators of quality of oil and its fatty acid structure, however they are less exacting to soil and climatic conditions, they are favorable predecessors and differ in the high level of profitability. These are such crops as oilseed flax, safflower, false flax and others, which can adequately replace part of the area under the sunflower. According to the state statistics service, the level of profitability of their cultivation in Ukraine gradually decreases from 80% down to 41.3% in 2017 yr, and the cost price increased to 474.6 UAH/t. In addition, the sunflower is substantially dries the soil and infests it with the sunflower broomrape, which except sunflower adjusts to exist on the many crops. Our studies which conducted with other spring oil crops in the southern Steppe of Ukraine, justified the feasibility of their cultivation, in particular safflower, flax, oilseeds and false flax. These crops, like sunflower, respond positively to the optimization of nutrition and significantly increase seed yield and quality. Taking into account the above, we consider it would be appropriate to occupy a part of the area under the rather exhausting and most common sunflower crop with less well-known and so far not widespread oilseeds such as safflower, oilseed flax, false flax and others. Although they form the lower yield compared to sunflower, but they are the best precursors for crops, they are less demanding on moisture and have high oil qualities. The productivity of these crops increases significantly (35-40%) when optimizing their nutrition, even on the basis of resource conservation. It is advisable to explore other elements of the technology of cultivation of less common oil crops, which will allow increasing the area of their cultivation relative to existing needs in the close future