Machinery & Energetics

The stages of research and formation of scientific ideas about the spatial heterogeneity of the soil cover in the plains of the Right-Bank Forest-Steppe are considered. Particular attention is paid to the peculiarities of the water regime of soils caused by flooding of microdepressions (“potholes”) in the spring with melt waters, and in the summer, with showers. The impact of such a water regime on the agrochemical and physico-chemical properties of chernozem soils on various elements of the microrelief is shown. The decrease of soil yields of the bottom and slopes of microdepressions in a different water regime was revealed. Loss of yield on fields with microdepressions, reaching about 22-23%, was estimated as well. The complex use of both traditional ground-based methods for investigating the spatial heterogeneity of soil cover and field productivity, as well as the use of UAVs (drones), GPS receivers for precise positioning of research sites, as well as Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2a and 2b space images are substantiated. The use of such means for correction of detailed soil maps of plain areas with micro- and even meso- and nanodepressions is suggested. It is recognized that it is expedient to compile maps of spatial heterogeneity of land use and field productivity.

soil, heterogeneity, space, land