EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT SULPHUR RATES AND ROW SPACING ON OILSEED RAPE

Oilseed rape is an important crop for the 21st century, its oil being widely used for producing biodiesel, due to its effect on reducing exhaust emissions, as well as in human alimentation. Sulphur is a secondary macronutrient which is important in oilseed rape production as it is interacting strongly with nitrogen having a great impact on seed yield. Row spacing in oilseed rape cultivation is a key element due to its impact on plant architecture, as oilseed rape is a plant with high branching ability, especially in the case of newly created hybrids. Branching can help surpass plant population losses due to environmental factors, it having an important contribution to the seed yield establishment. A study on the interaction between sulphur fertilization rate and row spacing is important to finding the optimum of these elements of oilseed rape production technology, and our research aimed to identify them in the agro-climatic conditions of NE Romania over 3 years, in 2021-2023. Variant with 37.5 cm row spacing and sulphur fertilizer rate of 72 kg SO3 per hectare generated the highest statistically significant yield of 3,689 kg per hectare compared to the control variant yield of 2,832 kg per hectare. The medium row spacing and high sulphur rate have resulted in higher yields associated with better development of yielding components such as number of branches per plant, number of siliques per plant, and number of seeds per plant, compared to variants with closer row spacing and low sulphur fertilizer rates.