The situation in Russia and Ukraine has an increasingly influential scope, which not only makes the price of energy such as oil and gas soar, but also the price of food has also risen.
Source 丨 See watermark
Russia and Ukraine, both belligerents, are the world's leading wheat exporters, Ukraine is known as the "granary of Europe", and Russia will account for the world's largest wheat export volume in 2021, which makes people worry about the global food supply problem.
Source 丨Fenghuang Network Finance
1 Throw what long what "European granary"
The land of Ukraine is very fertile and is one of the main black lands in the world.
To exaggerate, the black soil of Ukraine, throwing what grows, is known as the granary of Europe. The plains of Eastern Europe are so large, why is Ukraine alone called the granary of Europe? In fact, this is closely related to the Dnieper River.
Source 丨 Earth Knowledge Bureau
The black soil of Ukraine is mainly distributed in central and eastern Ukraine, and the Dnieper River runs through central Ukraine, providing enough water for the black soil. Without the moisture of the Dnieper, it would be difficult for Ukraine to produce so much grain.
In the Soviet era, Ukraine had a well-known title – the bread basket. The plains of Russia's countries are much larger than those of Ukraine, but the Ukrainian countries are important grain production bases in the Soviet Union.
The significance of the Dnieper river to Ukraine is equivalent to the meaning of the Volga river to Russia. It can be said that without the Volga, Russia would no longer be Russia; without the Dnieper, Ukraine would not be Ukraine.
In addition, the black soil rich in calcium carbonate in the eastern European plains also created conditions for the "granary of Europe". Black soil is a good soil in agriculture, which contains a large amount of phosphoric acid, humus, phosphorus, ammonia, magnesium, and minerals such as calcium or iron, so the agricultural yield is extremely high.
The fertile black soil benefits from one of the substances called "humus", which is a kind of black colloidal substance formed by the decomposition of animal and plant debris after the decomposition of soil microorganisms, and the humus, although it is not beautiful, is rich in nutrients and can provide plants with nutrients needed for growth.
2 Four large black lands
There are only four large black soil areas in the world, the largest and flattest is the Ukrainian Great Plain, with an area of about 1.9 million square kilometers, the second largest is the Mississippi Plain in the United States, with an area of about 1.2 million square kilometers, the smallest South American Argentina is connected to the Uruguayan Pampas, with an area of about 760,000 square kilometers, and the northeastern black soil area of the continent is about 1.03 million square kilometers.
Global distribution of black soil areas
Source丨National Earth System Science Data Center
The black soil area located in the Ukrainian plain belongs to the temperate continental climate, and the more typical black soil area is dominated by forest steppe, the humus layer is thicker, and there are also black soil areas dominated by grasslands, and the humus layer in such areas will be relatively thin. The region is mainly grown with wheat, corn, soybeans, potatoes and sugar beets.
Located in the Mississippi River Basin, the Black Soil Area of the United States is very flat, the hydrothermal conditions are better, the grass is abundant, the accumulation of dead branches and leaves is more, the soil humus content is higher, the southeast of the basin is subtropical, dominated by trees, and the central and eastern parts of the basin are temperate and dominated by grasslands. The region is rich in wheat, soybeans, corn and cotton.
Located in the Pampas grassland of South America, the black soil area in the east belongs to the subtropical climate, the west belongs to the temperate climate, the area is dominated by grass plants, basically no trees, "Pampas" originally means "no trees of the prairie", where the grass is luxuriant and the animal husbandry is developed.
The black soil of the mainland is mainly distributed in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, with a temperate monsoon climate zone and four distinct seasons. The vegetation of the northeast thrives in spring and summer, with a well-developed root system, which transports a lot of fresh organic matter to the soil. In the autumn and winter, the temperature drops, the snow covers the soil, the soil microbial cat prepares for the "winter rest" in the soil, and the decomposition and mineralization of the soil humus is slowed down, and the soil humus is thus accumulated. In the long run, humus accumulates more and more in the soil, which not only dyes the soil more and more black, but also makes the soil more and more fertile, forming a fertile black land unique to the northeast.
3 Is the Black Land Disappearing?
On the black soil, whether it is growing crops such as corn, soybeans or rice, not only the product is sufficient, but the quality is also very high-quality. However, the long-term overloading of black soil, the reuse of light culture, is facing soil erosion, soil thinning, fertility decline and other problems.
How can we protect the black soil? This requires an understanding of the general principles of soil science.
In 2017, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) proposed ten guidelines for sustainable soil management. These ten guidelines are also the most important principles or guidelines for how to protect soil quality and make it sustainable for agricultural production and planting in our land use management and sustainable agricultural development.
In 2017, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) proposed ten guidelines for sustainable soil management
Source丨 Capital Science Lecture Hall
The first is to do everything possible to reduce soil erosion. The second is to increase the content of organic matter in the soil. The third is that the soil nutrients are balanced and well circulated. The last one is to improve the management of soil moisture. Water is the source of life, and the amount of water supplied actually determines the yield of crops.
The international solution is conservation use, or conservation agriculture. Conservation agriculture is actually to protect the most basic soil resources in agricultural development, only by protecting soil resources can we use them sustainably and agricultural production can we use them sustainably.
In conservation agriculture, there are actually three parts, no-till, cover and crop rotation, which is the farming system of our conservation agriculture.
No-tillage is to try not to plough the land, the cover is the surface should be the focus of coverage, whether it is the cover of the crop itself during the growing period, or after harvest, the crop residue or residue should be covered to the surface.
Crop rotation is added on the basis of no-till and mulch. For example, corn and soybean rotation can be carried out in the northeast region, and water and drought rotation in places where conditions permit. This means that a piece of land cannot be planted with the same crop forever.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has proposed the principles of conservation agriculture: no-till, mulching, crop rotation
Traditional farming requires ploughing the land, harrowing the land, sowing it individually, and then deeply loosening the soil, requiring a variety of mechanical operations. This requires mechanical entry into the ground, constantly moving the soil, and ensuring a good growth condition for the plants through the soil.
We need to encourage traditional farming to shift to less or no-till. Less tillage means not to plough the land as much as possible, or to sow seeds after spinning or harrowing the land, and then carry out deep pine if necessary. No-tillage means that when the straw is covered, the operations such as sowing and fertilization are completed at one time. No-tillage is the use of no-till seeders, while sowing seeds, the fertilization and insect-proof drugs are applied as much as possible at one time.
More and more countries are now adopting conservation tillage internationally, especially the Americas, North and South America, which are participating in an increasingly large area, with 80 to 90 per cent of the land using conservation tillage.
No-tillage, sowing and straw mulching have restored the original ecosystem of the soil, resulting in a sharp increase in biomass in the soil, especially the "engineer" of soil tillage, earthworms. After no-tillage, the task of improving the soil structure is actually left to the organisms.
Earthworms are the "engineers" of soil ploughing, and the task of improving the soil structure is actually entrusted to the organisms.
Studies have shown that whether it is corn straw or soybean straw, as long as it covers 1/3 of the surface, the amount of soil erosion can be reduced by more than 80%. This is because after the surface is covered, it protects the soil, reduces the wind speed, is not easy to wind and sand, and water erosion will be greatly reduced. If the surface straw is covered to more than 2/3, the amount of soil erosion can be reduced by more than 95%.
Also, why rotate? This is because the properties of different plants are not the same, especially the performance of the root system is different. The function of the root system is also very different, for example, legumes also have the role of nitrogen fixation, after the rotation of corn and soybeans, the nitrogen fixation of crops such as beans and soybeans actually consumes low soil fertility, and it can also add some nitrogen to the soil to provide nitrogen fertilizer for the next season of corn.
Different crops are planted with different root depths, some are straight roots, some are root-based, and the space implanted in the deep layers of the soil and the shallow surface space are also different, which can improve the characteristics of the soil.
Black land is a precious gift of nature, if we do not take effective protective measures to protect black land, in the near future, we may lose this "beautiful black". Only good and healthy soil can ensure food production on black soil and safeguard human food security.