Scientific bases of land use systems: science and practice | Научные основы систем использования земли: наука и практика

In agricultural industry of the Republic of Belarus the problem of increasing the effectiveness of utilization of land resources appears one of the most actual. Annual alienation of agricultural lands and arable fields under housing construction and industrial buildings, roads and other economic object leads to implacable decline of agricultural areas. Absence of new lands, suitable for agricultural use, promotes increase of agricultural productivity by means of intensification of producing process. Effective use of every acre of agricultural lands allows getting more and more production without expansion. The main problem of the research is a development of scientific foundations of intensive systems of land utilization for specialized agriculture upon perfection of soil-and-ecological crop rotations, cropping pattern systems and their rational combinations with fertilizing systems and crop-protection measures. The article demonstrates the results of 50-year research in long-term stationary experiments on sod-podzolic light loamy soil on the study of land use systems on the basis of the improvement of various types and kinds of crop rotations, cropping patterns and their combination with fertilizer systems. In course of the study there were realized the following seminal works which have important scientific and practical importance for arable farming in Belarus. 1. Possibility of specialization of crop rotations in the conditions of intensification of arable farming. Intensive resource-saving crop rotations for farms specializing in dairy and meat production. 2. Complex influence of different types and kinds of crop rotations and fertilizer systems on productivity of arable lands. 3.Evaluation of crops as preceding crops in crop rotations. Growing of grain, cereal, leguminous and perennial legume grasses and row crops in various types of crop rotations. 4. Structure of arable lands for farms which specialize in dairy and meat production, as well as the modernization of sowing areas for agricultural organizations in the Republic. 5. Agronomic and economic evaluation of application of intermediate crops in crop rotations. 6. Influence of different types of crop rotations on soil fertility.