A new highly productive winter common wheat variety ‘Dargo’ resistant to powdery mildew and brown rust

The current paper has presented the results of the development and study of a new winter common wheat variety ‘Dargo’. The purpose of breeding was to obtain and characterize a variety optimally adapted to the forest-steppe conditions of the Middle Volga region with genetically determined resistance to powdery mildew and brown rust. A new winter common wheat variety ‘Dargo’ has been developed by the researchers of the Penza RIA using the method of intraspecific hybridization and subsequent individual selection of basic plants in the generation F3, obtained from crossing the varieties ‘Volzhskaya100’ (Ulyanovsk RIA), ‘Samaryanka’ (Samara RIA) and Century (US). The current paper has presented detailed data on the morphological features and economic and biological characteristics of the new variety. The 2021–2023 testing results have shown that the variety ‘Dargo’ demonstrates a statistically significant grain productivity improvement compared to the standard variety ‘Fotinya’. The productivity advantage averaged 0.73 t/ha. The large productivity of ‘Dargo’ is ensured by the increased 1000-grain weight (40.6 g), a larger number of grains per ear (52 pcs.) and an increased grain weight per ear (2.11 g). The valuable characteristics of the variety also include high winter resistance (about 95 %) and almost complete resistance to powdery mildew and brown rust. In addition, ‘Dargo’ produces grain with high consumer qualities, namely 750–790 g/l of grain nature weight, 15.4–16.7 % of protein, 28.2–30.4 % of gluten with 86–95 u. of GDI. Economic analysis has revealed that cultivation of the variety ‘Dargo’ is by 8160 rubles more profitable per hectare compared to that of the variety ‘Fotinya’. The variety ‘Dargo’ has demonstrated higher production profitability (138 %) compared to the variety ‘Fotinya’ (114 %).