The Krasnodar Krai is the main region of rice production of the Russian Federation. Rice is characterized by high adaptability to environmental conditions, as evidenced by its extensive range and a wide variety of conditions for its cultivation. The area of rice production of the Krasnodar Krai that covers the lower reaches of the Kuban River west of Krasnodar, and consists of five rice reclamation agricultural landscapes: old delta, transition delta, young delta, valley and out-of-delta [4]. The soil covering is diverse: there are about 90 soil differences at the species and generic levels. Most of them have quite favourable conditions for the growth of rice [1, 9]. Over the past five years, the volume of rice production annually amounts to more than 800 thousand tons. The exception for the industry was 2017 and 2018 when production parameters were reduced due to a decrease in acreage [5–8] (table 1).

One of the factors that ensure high and guaranteed yields and quality of rice grains is the introduction of new and promising varieties with high yield and quality into production [3]. In this regard, for the effective management of rice production, it is necessary to systematically select and evaluate new varieties, replace previously grown ones with them, systematically carry out strain changing and strain renovation, taking into account individual characteristics, requirements of varieties and agroecological conditions of an individual farm. That is why, it is necessary to carry out production evaluation and tests of varieties to change and expand the range of varieties grown, which will allow carrying out strain changing to ensure their accelerated introduction into production.

In 2020, a production evaluation of five rice varieties was carried out in the conditions of old delta (Kubris, OOO, Krasnoarmeyskiy District) and valley (Promagrokhimia, OOO, Crimea District) districts.

The objects of research were rice varieties of the Federal Scientific Rice Centre: Alliance, Veles, Lenaris, Favorit, Yubileiny 85. The placement of experience options is systematic. The plot area is 0.35 ha. The sowing method is in drills (with a row spacing of 15 cm), the seeding rate is 7 million germinating grains per 1 ha. The irrigation regime is shortened flooding. The forecrop is winter wheat. Tillage and its pre-sowing preparation, irrigation regime and care of rice crops were carried out according to the recommendations for rice cultivation in the Krasnodar Krai [1, 9]. Records and observations were carried out according to the current methods [2]. Statistical data processing was carried out by the analysis-ofvariance method [10].