FEATURES AND CHARACTERISTICS USE PASTURES OF BURYATIA
Pasture farming is commercially profitable branch of cattle breeding production in the Republic of Buryatia. The main source of creating feed base for Republican beef cattle production is the territory used as a distant pasture. The development of distant pasture cattle rearing demands solving a set of problems due to unfavorable situation on the Republican pasture. Unequal distribution of pastures and considerable increase of quantity of cattle livestock in a private sector leads to disproportion between required and available natural forage lands. The purpose of the research is to provide a comprehensive assessment of distant pastures (feeding value of natural lands, botanical composition, and modem usage). The highland territories are used as pastures according to their natural and climatic conditions can be divided into four edaphoclimatic zones: Highland zone with spreading of rocky stream gravel and peaty-cryomorphic soils, Southern zone with soddypodzolic and soddy forest nonpodzolized soils; Vitimo-Kondinsky zone with mountain-taiga-podzolized and surface humus gley soils, Northen zone with mountain-taiga and surface ferrimorphic soils. Practical use of grass should start from the end of May till beginning of June. The average productivity of herbage is about 1500-3000 kilogram per hectare. Foliage cover varies from 50 to 80 %. The duration of pasture season lasts from 90 to 100 days (from the first decade of June till the beginning of September). According to the chemical analysis of grass stand, it contains 2,2 % Fats, 7,69 % proteins, 28,3 % fiber, 30 mlg carotin per 1 kilogram. Represented data shows that the Republic possesses extensive resources of pasture forage to maintain livestock. Transition to heavy use of highland pastures will allow to reduce substantially the pressure on forage lands of basic land use. This fact will enable to raise the productivity of basic forage lands as well as to preserve soil from wind and water erosions. The fact of including highland pastures into the agricultural processes will become one of the reasons of raising meat production and other items of republican beef cattle production.