BROAD BEAN (VICIA FABA L.) A FORGOTTEN CROP MAKING A COMEBACK.

The research regarding some technological links took place in the Oraviţa Depression, located in south-western Romania, between 2016 and 2018. The records from the Oraviţa Meteorological Station show that the average annual rainfall in the area is 736 mm, and the average annual temperature is 10°C. The climate of this area falls within the climatic formula c.f.b.x. according to Koppen, namely in the moderate continental temperate climate. The soil type on which the experiments were performed was stagnogleyic preluvosol with a slight acidic reaction (pH 6,5 in water), a low medium humus content (2,18%) with a clay-loamy texture, favourable to the crop under study. Two bifactorial experiments were organized, with three repetitions each. We studied the behaviour of three plants originating in Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, cultivated on four levels of fertilization (N0, N30, N50 and N70 on a common background of P70K70). The results highlighted their good reaction to fertilizers. According to the average fertilization levels, the highest yield was obtained from the plant originating in Romania - 3512 kg/ha, followed by the plant originating in Serbia - 3157 kg/ha, and the one originating in Montenegro - 2931 kg/ha. The nitrogen fertilizers applied on a constant background of P70K70, on average on the three plants originating in different countries, increased the average yield of the plants originating in the three countries by 19% - 44%. We experimented on the effect of the distance between rows and the yield density. Increasing the distance between rows from 30 cm to 50 cm increased the yield by 4%, while at the distance of 70 cm the crop yield increased to 5%. Of the densities, on average on the three distances between the rows, the best results were obtained in the variant planted with 50 germinable grains/m2, in which a 10% yield was obtained, compared to the yield from the variant planted with 30 germinable grains/m2. The protein content increased with the nitrogen dosage, from 23.4% to 28.2% for the plant originating in Romania, from 22.7% to 27.3% for the plant originating in Serbia and from 23.3% to 27.8% for the plant originating in Montenegro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]