THE PRODUCTIVITY OF INTENSIVE APPLE GARDENS ON TERRACED SLOPES OF THE KABARDINO-BALKARIAN REPUBLIC
The central part of the North Caucasus is one of the leading regions in agricultural production of the South of the Russian Federation; a large-scale program of intensive gardening development has been established there. In this regard, a special place belongs to the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic which is characterized by favorable agroecological conditions. In spite of the fact that in the past the Republic was one of the main zones of fruit production, at present commercial gardening is not always and not everywhere efficient enough. One of the reasons is that many extensive gardens in foothill and mountainous areas need to be replaced by the plantings of more intensive type on clonal stocks. The yielding capacity and economic efficiency of such outdated plantings does not ensure expanded reproduction of gardening branch. A complex nature of the creation of intensive fruit plantings in the conditions of vertical zonality of the Central part of the North Caucasus requires accurately developed recommendations and scientific justification of growing apple-trees on slopes; the research of these issues is very topical and has great economic value that is confirmed by high economic efficiency of introduction of the obtained results in production. This paper discusses the experimental data on the efficiency of intensive apple gardens on terraced slopes of the foothills of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. The obtained data will enable to lay out intensive apple gardens of various slope exposures (southern, eastern, western, and northern) and slope elements (lower, middle, top) on adaptive and landscape basis, and that will promote more rational use of the reclaimed lands. The research results have been implemented on gardening farms in various fruit-growing zones of the North Caucasian Federal District on the area of 267 hectares.