Influence of the main tillage during the radical improvement of pastures in the arid zone

Abstract

The problems of creating highly productive pastures are inextricably linked with their melioration, both agrotechnical and meliorative. With such a formulation of the problem, a comprehensive improvement of land, soil and vegetation cover, an increase in its productivity and nutritional value is assumed. The experience of previous studies in this direction has shown that a grass mixture consisting of cultivated legumes and cereal components is less durable and less resistant to stressful situations than one consisting of desert natives. In our studies, various grass mixtures of perennial plants were used, most fully adapted to the soil and climatic features of the region under study and, in particular, to light chestnut and brown soils, as well as to brown non-saline soils of light mechanical composition [2,5,7]. Since the fundamental improvement of natural fodder lands imposes special requirements, first of all, on the quality of cultivation and the properties of the root-inhabited soil layer, it is necessary to assess its physical and water-physical properties under the influence of various methods and the depth of the main cultivation. Our research on this issue showed the following.