Soil-Remediating Activity of Agroecosystems and Chernozem Fertility Restoration Using Low-Carbon Technologies

Abstract

Aim. To present theoretical justifi cation of the increase in potential fertility of typical chernozem with system- atic application of zero tillage via the creation of soil conditions, optimal for photosynthesis, and provision of maximal physiological activity of root systems of cultivated crops to restore natural processes of soil formation in the agroecosystems of the Left-Bank Forest-Steppe of Ukraine. Methods. Field, laboratory, computational, mathematical and statistical. Results. The analysis of scientifi c literature and our own studies (for over 30 years) have demonstrated that the conditions of minimal tillage ensure the connection between the physiologi- cal rhythms of activity of agricultural crops, the rhythms of humus decomposition and synthesis, the fi xation of carbonic acid by the heterotrophic saprophyte microfl ora and carbonation, restoring soil formation in agroeco- systems. Agricultural crops in the agroecosystems are self-developing, auto-regulated, open systems, capable of overcoming the forces, causing the increase in entropy and forming highly regulated and dynamically stable complexes of different hierarchy. High information capacity and codifi cation of cultivated crops defi nes the direction of the development of soil medium in agroecosystems. When the genetic information capacity of the development of cultivated crops resonates with the information capacity of the soil medium development, there is either the soil formation process or the process of extensive fertility restoration in agroecosystems. Conclusions. The maintenance and application of aboveground by-products of crop production, suffi ciently compensated in terms of nitrogen using mineral fertilizers, as organic fertilizers, and wrapped up into the sur- face layer of chernozem during the zero tillage, simulates the natural course of nitrogen-carbon circulation in agroecosystems of different types. The restoration of the natural soil formation model in the agroecosystems is ensured by the stimulation of physiological activity of cultivated crops in the agroecosystems due to the launch of drain mechanisms of carbon with the increase in СО 2 content in the lowest atmospheric layers dur- ing the vegetation period of crops, which should be the basic model of extensive fertility restoration of typical chernozem.