INCREASE OF CUCUMBER PRODUCTIVITY IN OPEN FIELD IN THE LOWER VOLGA REGION

The most effective methods of cucumber yield increasing are growth regulators and mineral fertilizers applications, which are important in arid conditions of the Lower Volga region. The field experiments were carried out in Caspian scientific research institute of arid agriculture, Astrakhan region, Chernoyarsky district in 2014-2016. The purpose of the study was to study fertilizers and growth regulators influence on productivity of cucumber grown in light chestnut soils with drip irrigation. On the whole, fertilizers and growth regulators application increased cucumber yield. The highest yield was obtained in hybrid ‘Russky stil F1’ in variants N110P105K75 + Megafol (136.5 t/ha) and N110P105K75 + Vitazim (96.3 t/ha), so yield increase was 84.9 t/ha and 44.7 t/ha, respectively. On, for all hybrids, average mass per plant increased by 378.7 g in variant N110P105K75, in variant N110P105K75 + Vitazim - by 842.2 g, in variant N110P105K75 + Megafol - by 1013.9 g. Cucumber yield in all hybrids on average increased by 14.5 t/ha in variant N110P105K75, by 27.0 t/ha in variant N110P105K75 + Vitazim, by 35.3 t/ha in variant N110P105K75 + Megafol. According to the results, application of fertilizers in the dose of N110P105K75 and leaf treatments with growth regulators Megafol or Vitazim increased cucumber productivity and yield reached more than 100.0 t/ha in the open field under drip irrigation. The profitability amounted to 134.1-159.3% and payback was 2.34-2.59 rub/rub.