SYMBIOTIC ACTIVITY OF MEDICAGO VARIA MART. DEPENDING ON THE TYPE OF NITROGEN NUTRITION
The issue of the use of mineral forms of nitrogen for legumes is still a source of debate among scientists. Under the environmental conditions of the foothill zone of RNO-Alania, the field experiments were laid to study the activity of the symbiotic system and the productivity of the alfalfa depending on the type of nitrogen nutrition and the presence of a virulent active strain of rhizobia. The research was carried out in 2017– 2019. Soil – chernozems leached. Objects: crops of Medicago varia Mart.; industrial strain of rhizotorphin 425a; inoculum of high-mountain strains of nodule bacteria; starting doses of nitrogen fertilizers. The dimensions of the symbiotic apparatus were studied according to the G.S. Posypanov method. The specific activity of symbiosis was 4.2 to 9.0 mg/kg. The maximum amount of air nitrogen (456.1 kg/ha) for three years of experiments was fixed by the symbiotic system of alfalfa in the variant with pre-sowing seed inoculation with high-mountain strains of nodule bacteria. This indicates their higher activity and competitiveness compared to the industrial strain of rhizotorphin 425a and indigenous strains of rhizobia from the pre-mountain zone of RNO-Alania. Mineral forms of nitrogen significantly inhibited the activity of the symbiotic system. As a result, the amount of fixed nitrogen decreased by 3.5–9.0 %. In the pre-mountain zone, under natural conditions, the growth and development of plants were provided with atmospheric nitrogen by 66 %, the rest of the need for the element (34 %) they satisfied with soil nitrogen. The maximum involvement of molecular nitrogen of the atmosphere in the biological cycle was distinguished by the variant with pre-sowing inoculation of seeds by virulent active strains of rhizobia, in which the share of air nitrogen participation in plant nutrition averaged 71–73 % over the three years of research.