Biomelioration of saline soils by sorghum crops in Western Ciscaucasia
The main region of rice cultivation in Russian Federation (the ancient delta of the Kuban River) is one of the most man-made landscapes. The soil cover of this meliorative zone (about 500 thousand hectares) is characterized by considerable variegation and contrast with the prevalence of low-power, gleyed and saline soils of meadow type. The results of soil surveys show that more than 35% of the area is salinized to varying degrees; areas where physical and chemical and water-physical properties are in a stressful for the plant state are quite large. The world experience of agriculture shows that sorghum crops have a significant environment-forming effect and can be an effective element of phytobiomelioration technologies that eliminate the processes of soil cover degradation and chemical salinization. In the production conditions of land reclamation farms on soils of various genetic types, a test was carried out of the effectiveness of domestic varieties of sorghum crops in soil desalinization and quantitative parameters for reducing the salt content. It was found that in conditions of sulfate-chloride and hydrocarbonate-sulfate salinization, two to three-year growing of sorghum crops reduces the content of negative ions of sulfates and chlorides by 2-3 times.