The effect of mineral and bio-fertilizers on field emergence and plant survival of repeated maize and sunflower

Abstract

The article presents the effect of mineral fertilizers and Ekogumin applied at 250 kg/ha on field emergence and plant survival of maize and sunflower grown as second crops after winter wheat. In the 2023 field experiment, three NPK levels without biofertilizer and the corresponding Ekogumin treatments were compared for each crop. Treatments receiving Ekogumin showed higher field emergence, plant survival and final stand density, while plant mortality was lower than in the corresponding treatments under the same NPK background. Maize survival reached 97.1% in treatment 5 and sunflower survival reached 96.8% in treatment 11. The findings indicate that combining mineral nutrition with a humic biofertilizer can contribute to a more stable stand establishment of repeated crops.