Agroecological Assessment of Suitability of the Steppe Soils of Ukraine for Ecological Farming

Abstract

The intensive development of industry generates a number of negative consequences, which leads to an ecological crisis. As a result, the soil on which plant products are grown is polluted by radionuclides, heavy metals, pesticides, and chemicals. That is why in the early 1960s, the alternative farming, which is also called biological, biodynamic or organic, began to develop in Europe. The movement for alternative farming is widely developing in industrialized countries with a high level of chemization of agriculture. Therefore, the proposed topic is extremely relevant in terms of rational nature use, ensuring the sustainable development of territories, as well as food security in Ukraine. The article deals with agroecological assessment of suitability of agricultural land of the Steppe Zone of Ukraine for ecological farming and bases on the modern data from the Kherson branch of the state institution "Institute of Soil Protection of Ukraine". Spatial modeling of the presence of nutrients in the steppe soil of Ukraine was made by the means of ArcGIS 10.1 product. Taking into account the obtained data and spatial modeling, the territories with soils of limited suitability for ecological farming occupy 67.2% (1194.5 thousand hectares) of the Kherson region, unsuitable soils are located on 16.7% (297.4 thousand hectares) of agricultural land of the Steppe Zone of Ukraine and suitable lands were detected on 16.1% (286.2 thousand hectares) of the territory of the studied lands. The conclusion was made that with the actual availability of lands occupied under ecological farming (4.3% or 75.9 thousand hectares), the territory of the Steppe Zone of Ukraine has a prime potential to increase the area under ecological farming by 4.2 times. Therefore, the article paid attention to ecological farming, taking into account the specifics of the content of trace elements in the steppe soils and their compliance with the methodology for determining whether soils belong to the categories of suitable, limited-suitability and unsuitable for ecological farming.

The Impact of Pre-Crops on the Formation of Water Balance in Winter Wheat Agrocenosis and Soil Moisture in the Steppe Zone

“…It is important to highlight that, over the past years, introduction of adaptive technologies and use of stress-resistant varieties and hybrids of agricultural crops are difficult to access for small farms because of high prices for seeds, plant protection products, fuels and lubricants and high depreciation of machines. Large enterprises took dominating positions on the market of agricultural products that has led to deterioration of ecological condition of land and water resources, caused by introduction of intensive technologies (Breus and Skok 2021; Breus and Yevtushenko 2022; Dudiak et al, 2020Dudiak et al, , 2021Pichura et al, 2021).…”

“…It was found (Albers et al, 2017; Knapp and Heijden, 2018; Domaratskiy et al, 2018Domaratskiy et al, , 2019 that the main conditions for vegetation are a climatic factor, crop rotations, the amount of nutrients in soil and the level of agro-technological practices. In particular, a pre-crop affects the level of accumulation of nutrients important for plants in soil, moisture content in soil, sowing dates, intensity of vegetation, formation of morphological properties and leaf water balance, the rate of plant metabolism and photosynthesis (Berzsenyi, 2000;Yang et al, 2022;Breus and Yevtushenko, 2023). An effective pre-crop improves a field micro-climate, that is maintained by an increase in leaf surface of crops and a reduction in evaporation of moisture from soil surface (Ray et al, 2015;Berti and Mulligan, 2016).…”

Assessment of the Effect of Biological Growth-Regulating Preparations on the Yield of Agricultural Crops under the Conditions of Steppe Zone

“…This is evidenced by the experience of many research institutions and numerous scientific and industrial inspections. Currently, growth regulators are widely used in production as important elements of ecologically safe resource-saving technologies (Breus et al, 2021).…”

Agricultural Dependence of the Formation of Water Balance Stability of the Sluch River Basin Under Conditions of Climate Change

“…Agricultural producers worry because of climate changes which worsen due to their activity (Dudiak et al, 2019b). In particular, long-term precipitation deficit in water catchment areas causes meteorological aridity (Wu et al, 2023) which later manifests itself in lower soil moisture content (Breus et al, 2023;Furtak et al, 2023) that is intensified by evaporation (Chen et al, 2019), that disrupts the state of ecological system of a river basin. Therefore, under conditions of climate change and unstable water supply, it is important to maintain balanced functioning of water management and agriculture that will manifest itself in improvement of the system of evaluation and efficient use of available water resources in farming as a component of an integral system in the structure of basin exploitation of natural resources, environmental protection and life maintenance quality on the basis of advanced methods.…”