Spring barley is grown in Ukraine as food, feed and technical crops, its area reaches 2-5 million hectares. Today it is the second most extended crop. Expanding the range and volume of beer production in our country and the world, results in  demand for high-quality malt, the main component of which is barley grain. Double row brewing varieties are the most valuable ones. Increase in the demand for malting barley grain and new varieties as well as changing climatic conditions ead to the need of improving some technology elements of cultivation of this crop. Normal growth and development of crops depend on the factors like light, heat and nutrients. It is their availability that provide fast, friendly and aligned shoots. Therefore, soil preparation for sowing and the sowing itself should be done at a high level.

The first indicator that characterizes the state of the field crops is seed germination, defined as the percentage of the number of shoots on the number of sown seeds. Low field germination is an unfavorable factor for the formation of agrophytocenoses. Accordingly, the lower field germination, the greater irregularity of plants per unit area, and differences in the individual components of the plant are more different. Friendliness of shoots appearance is one of the conditions for high productivity. Shoots that have appeared friendly – develop simultaneously, which facilitates the formation of agrophytocenoses, care sowing and harvesting, and improves product quality. With regard to the preservation of plants, it is also an important indicator that depends on technology elements throughout the growing season of plants.

We evaluated the impact of the factors studied on field germination of seeds using student's test and found out that indicators of field germination of sowing terms  of 05.04., 15.04. and 25.04. for Syebastyan variety that made up 93.2-93.9 % and for Eksployer variety – 92.9-93.7 % were significantly higher as compared to the data of field germination of sowing terms 15.03. and 25.03. The significance of these terms were within 91.4-91.9 % and 90.9-91.4 % for Syebastyan and Eksployer varieties  respectively. This is due to more favorable temperature conditions. For later sowing time, higher temperatures stimulate seed germination to fast and friendly shoots appearance. As for the seeding rate, the impact of this factor technology was defined. For all of the sowing terms regardless of the variety, there was no significant difference between the values ​​of different field germination seeding was revealed.

An important indicator is the crop preservation during the growth season. Our studies show that for Syebastyan variety best preservation, on average for three years, was in the first term of sowing at a rate of 300 seeds/m² and amounted to
95.4 %, the lowest, for sowing 25.04., seeding rate at 400 seeds/m² – 86.9 %. The same regularity is for Eksployer variety, the largest and smallest values of 95.4 % and 87.2 % respectively.

Using a comparative analysis on the criterion LSD₀₅ it has been found that both sowing and seeding rate influence the preservation of plants. There is no significant difference between indicators of preservation of the two first sowing terms by all seeding rates, as well as between the indicators of sowing 05.04. and 15.04. for both varieties. However, the sowing terms preservation values of 25.03. is significantly better as compared to the data of the next sowing. Crops preservation was significantly lower at the latest term of sowing as compared to the previous one. The reason for this is that early sowing crops are less affected by diseases and damaged by pests. Seeding rate technological factor was also influential in crops preservation. The best indicators of Syebastyan and Eksployer varieties preservation were marked for seeding rate of 300 s./m² for all of sowing terms. And there is a significant decrease in this indicator, with the increase of seeding rate to 350 s./m² and
400 s./m². Since the increase in seeding rate results in increase of coenotic impact of one crop to another, the competition between them increases, and the dense crops are more affected by diseases and are prone to lodging.

So, our research found out that field germination depends on the sowing terms and does not depend on the seeding rate.

Key words: barley, field germination, preservation, terms of sowing, seeding rate.