Lühiartikkel: Eesti muldkatte huumusseisund ja keskkonnahoidlik majandamine | Short Communication: Humus status of Estonian soil cover and its environment protective management

In the framework of the European mission “Soil Deal for Europe” ambitious tasks have been load to the whole European Union and forming its states in the field of carbon management. Departing from pedo-ecological conditions of Estonia, the pros and cons of the European Union's plans about carbon farming are treated. By the principles of pedocentric approach the soil humus status and carbon farming technologies are soil type specifics and should be utilized in the most detailed as possible soil taxonomic unit, for which by Estonian soil classification are soil species and soil varieties. Thanks to gathering during large scale (1:10,000) soil mapping in earlier time data and proceeding later field experiments in Estonia there are relatively good databases on soil humus status for all most dominated soil species and/or varieties by different land use conditions (arable, grass- and forest lands). The main available quantitative characteristics on soil humus status (expressed via carbon) are concentration (g C kg‒1) and superficial densities (Mg C ha‒1) of organic carbon given by soil species and their genetic horizons in above-named third land use conditions. Besides that, these data have been calculated (1) separately for humus cover (humipedons) and subsoil layers and (2) as well in relation to layers with certain thickness (30, 50 and 100 cm). As a qualitative index of humus status, the humus cover types (humus forms) have been elaborated separately for arable soils and for being in natural state soils. As the carbon concentration in arable soils depends mainly on contents of clay particles, watering conditions and calcareous­ness, was possible to elaborate for all dominating arable soils three humus (and carbon) concentration levels: scarce, optimal and excess, which are needed for choice of suitable to soil conditions agro technology. There is a declared serious shortage of knowledge on composition of soil organisms’ societies by soil types and on syn- and autecology of their functioning.