Economic and energy efficiency of pre-seeding treatment of cucumber seeds with the fungus Trichoderma viride

Abstract

Goal. To give economic and energy assessments of pre-sowing treatment of seeds with Trichoderma viride fungus in the technology of growing cucumber in the open ground. Methods. Field experiments were performed following generally accepted guidelines. The economic and energy efficiency of pre-sowing treatment of cucumber seeds with the fungus Trichoderma viride was determined by methodological approaches based on comparing the result of a particular agricultural measure with the cost of its implementation. Prices for resources and agricultural products are taken at the average actual level according to available statistics. To assess the significance of the differences between the variants of the experiments, the smallest significant difference was calculated. Results. Pre-sowing treatment of seeds with the fungus T. viride 017 helped to reduce the unit cost by 777 UAH/t (26.5%), increase the notional profit by 36654 UAH/ha and increase the estimated level of profitability of cucumber production by 104.4 percentage points. The energy efficiency coefficient of the energy content of the main product for the pre-sowing treatment of cucumber seeds with the fungus T. viride 017 is 1.42 (44%). At the same time, the energy content of cucumber harvest increases by 39,650 MJ/ha (44.9%) due to increased yield. Conclusions. Based on the results of many years of field experiments, agricultural production is proposed to use pre-sowing treatment of cucumber seeds with the fungus T. viride 017, which is an economically and energetically feasible measure in the technology of growing crops.