Comparative characteristics of soddy-podzolic plowed and fallow lands for the organic farming

Abstract

Agricultural lands are being actively withdrawn from the circulation. These lands are now fallow lands and go through the natural and anthropogenic processes like soil formation, tinning, bogging, swarding, weediness with bushes, weed, as well as with scrubs of birches and pines. Hence, the soil formation and functioning conditions and their ecological functions have significantly changed. Natural processes of vegetation recovery begin on the abandoned agricultural lands which leads to the recovery of forests. As a result, there occur soils which differ from the climatic type and arable soils. Practically all existing now statistic data can be summarized by saying that the character of changes in the chemical properties is closely related to the properties both of the soil, age of the fallow land and biocenosis. Taking into account patterns of reclamation preserve under the forest quite long in particular high concentration of nutritional chemicals and humus. The main objective of this investigation is to analyze the changing patterns of the composition and properties of soils which are not used in agriculture for a long time, for instance, soddy- podzolic plowed and fallow lands of the Mozhaisky district of the Moscow Region. The authors stated after the investigation that the soddy-podzolic plowed and fallow soils of different age differ insignificantly in the power of the humus-accumulated horizon (from 2.1% to 2.3%) and the distribution character of humus along the profile. Long existence of soils under fallow is not followed with changes in such properties as the reaction of environment, sum of absorbed bases, the hydrolytic acidity. On the arable lands the coefficient of soil fertility is 0.62, on the fallow ones up to 10 years old ⎯ 0.63 and on the fallow ones between 10 and 20 years old ⎯ 0.64.