The influence of the method of using chernozems on their physical properties

Abstract

The significant aggravation of the ecological situation and the formation of the pre-crisis, crisis, and often catastrophic state of land resources within the Buzka- Dnieper watershed requires a detailed study of the processes associated with agricultural activity. This is the only way to develop a methodological basis for improving the condition of the soils of agro-ecosystems and to assess the losses of agricultural production from the irrational use of outdated engineering technologies. The objective. The aim of the work was to identify the dependence between the soil structure and the main humus characteristics of the most common soil subtypes of the Kirovohrad region within natural and agroecosystems. Methods. In the process of performing the work, general scientific and special research methods were used: comparative-geographical, comparative-profile-genetic (selection of soil samples layer by layer); comparative-analytical (physical-chemical and agrochemical studies, comparative-calculation and statistical (mathematical and statistical processing of experimental data). Results. Regular mechanical mixing (ploughing, loosening, etc.) creates good conditions for the development of aerobic microflora and helps to accelerate the mineralization of organic residues and actually oxidation processes. A comparative analysis of the morphological structure of typical and ordinary chernozems of the Right Bank Southern Forest Steppe and Northern Steppe of the Buzka-Dnieper Region showed that plowing led to the disappearance of forest litter and turf horizons, and regular pedotubation, which arose as a result of loosening, led to coordinate changes in the morphology of the surface horizons, namely the allocation of the humus horizon of the arable layer, the development of erosion processes, which primarily affected the change in color, the formation of a non-permanent dusty-lumpy and briny structure, the increase in the equilibrium density of both humus and, in some cases, humus-transitional horizons. The intensification of mechanization processes led to the deterioration of the water-air regime of the soils of agroecosystems, which significantly affected the morphological structure of the profile. Agroecosystems in which mechanized cultivation is not used have a lumpy-granular loose structure of the arable layer, which is not typical for other anthropogenically altered soils. Anthropogenically transformed soils with science-based management undergo negative transformations less than soils of agroecosystems where only consumer approaches are used. Conclusions. Summarizing the results of changes in the morphological properties of typical and ordinary chernozems of the Buzka-Dnieper interfluve, we can conclude that the upper horizons of anthropogenically transformed soils differ from their natural counterparts by a number of indicators, the degree of deterioration of which depends on the amount of anthropogenic pressure.