UDC 631.431; 631.58
DOI 10.36461/NP.2025.76.4.021

MONITORING THE AVERAGE DENSITY OF ARABLE SOIL LAYER DEPENDING ON CROP ROTATION IN THE MOUNTAINOUZ ZONE OF NORTH OSSETIA
S.E. Kuchiev¹, Candidate of Agricultural Sciences, Associate Professor,
A.Kh. Kozyrev², Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, Professor
¹Gorsky State Agrarian University, Vladikavkaz, Russia, 8(919)4249743, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
²North Caucasian Research Institute of Mountain and Piedmont Agriculture – the Affiliate of Vladikavkaz Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Science 363110, North Ossetia-Alania, Mikhailovskoe village, 8(918)7050330, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Monitoring soil agrophysical researches under conditions of erosion processes on slope and mountain areas is relevant for soil fertility preservation for future generations. The research is aimed at long-term monitoring of the average density in the arable layer of mountain-meadow subalpine leached loamy-gravelly soils with a humus-illuvial horizon on clay shale eluvium, depending on crop rotation, in the mountainous zone of North Ossetia. Field experiments were carried out in several stages from 1996 to 2013 at the mountain long-term station of the North Caucasian Research Institute of Mountain and Piedmont Agriculture – the Affiliate of Vladikavkaz Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Science, located at an altitude of 1,560 m above sea level on a northeastern slope with a steepness of 7 in Dargavs (Prigorodny district of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania). Erosion processes analysis in mountain meadow soils allowed to determine many soil fertility indices, including average soil density. Obtained results confirmed assumptions about the structure of mountain meadow soils. The absence of non-capillary pores in the soil and the significant content of aggregate (clay shale eluvium) increased soil density. It was noticed that the average soil density above 1.35 g/cm³ negatively impacted soil fertility; under the influence of tractor wheels between rows, the soil was compacted in the 20 cm layer to 1.36–1.48 g/cm³. In soils with altered agrophysical parameters over 18 years of observation, bulk soil density increased with depth. The most significant changes affected the topsoil (0-10 cm), where the average soil density in the experimental site was 1.38 g/cm³, 0.08 g/cm³ higher than the values from the first observation period. The second and third layers increased by 0.06 and 0.07 g/cm³, respectively, to 1.45 and 1.51 g/cm³. In the mountain-meadow soil conditions, the average soil density values tend to be considered satisfactory for crop rotation.
Keywords: monitoring, average density, bulk density, clay shale eluvium, mountain-meadow soils.

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