The interrelated organizational, reclamation and agrotechnical measures that are aimed at land use, at increasing fertility and intensive restoration of them, is an agricultural system that is of great importance as a base for agricultural production, the overall productivity of which can be determined by the degree of perfection of the systems used.
First systems
The early period of arrangement of agricultural land was a time of accumulation of knowledge about land use, which mankind did not yet have, and only the most primitive methods could be equipped with existing productive forces. The farming system was of little interest to people, since it was difficult not only to grow crops, but also to protect them.
Soil fertility was used only in their natural state, where, thanks to natural processes, the land was restored on its own. The farming system was primitive: either forestry or slash-fire, as well as fallow and fallow. The most interesting thing is that they existed in Russia until the sixteenth century, and in a number of areas even longer.
Slash and fire system
In the forest areas, very common in our lands, the slash-fire system of agriculture was popular. The plot selected for arable land was cleaned - all shrubs and trees were cut down or burnt on the vine. Then the land was plowed, and for several years in a row the harvest was very good - both flax and cereals.
If the forest was cut down, a slashing system of agriculture was used, if it was burned - fire. However, after two or three years, this land practically ceased to give birth. Even the fire system of agriculture was not intense enough, despite the abundant ash feeding. And people had to learn more and more new sites, destroying forest land.
Forest system
Free land was gradually reduced, while private property arose. These reasons forced people to return to the abandoned old sites where the soil itself was restored using natural vegetation. So there was a new system of agriculture - forestry, which completely replaced the first two.
The steppe regions also had their own primitive agriculture, while the systems used others - shifted and fallow. The latter involved the development of virgin land for grain and various other crops, and the shift system came next: when the site lost fertility a few years later, it was left under the deposit for fifteen years, and then used again.
Crop rotation
The fallow gradually reduced the duration, and when the earth began to bear fruit no more than one year, it was time to change the primitive use to precision farming systems. These are not yet modern methods that allow directing the restoration of fertility; they were also extensive, but no longer primitive. The first system is steam, where crops and clean steam alternated. This is called crop rotation. Very often in agriculture, various elements of agricultural systems are combined, since the purely geographical and climatic conditions of a particular region dictate this.
The same thing happened with fields designed for steam. The field left without sowing was carefully cultivated for a whole year: weeds were destroyed, the soil was fertilized with manure. So the crops of grain crops expanded, and fertility was restored at least partially. The introduction of crop rotation was a broad step towards intensive farming. By the way, the steam system is still alive, it is used in Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan, where the humidification of the earth is small and there are long winters. True, fertilizers, herbicides, high-yielding varieties of wheat, as well as complex mechanization are widely used there.
Soil protection
One of the varieties of the steam system is soil protection, when the land is carefully treated with a plane cutter without disturbing the stubble. Also used are snow retention, rocker couples and strip placement of crops. This system is good for arid areas with strong winds that literally blow the fertile layer, and soil erosion occurs . Therefore, the features of the farming system in different regions often radically differ from each other.
The transition to an intensive, improved grain system is characterized by the fact that crop rotation involves not only crops and steam, but also crops of special perennial grasses, cereals and legumes that restore the fertility of the earth. Also, the transition system to intensive - grassland, which was developed by Williams in the twenties of the last century. This is a whole complex of crop rotation - grass field, field and meadow. This restoration of fertility is used in the non-chernozem zone of our country.
Rowing and fertility systems
Intensive and fairly modern farming systems are considered row-crop and fruit-bearing. When using the latter, half of the area is occupied by grain crops, the rest is given for legumes and row crops. With this alternation, fertility is maintained, especially if mineral and other fertilizers are used, and the soil is carefully cultivated. This system is good where there is a lot of moisture in the suburbs and irrigated areas.
Row crops - corn, potatoes, beets and others, that is, those that need row spacing - with a row crop system occupy most of the plowed land. Fertility is supported by fertilizers. The tilled (plow) farming system is a huge success where fodder, industrial and vegetable crops are grown.
Intensive farming systems
Intensive farming systems are called because a person has a huge impact on soil restoration, their fertility, which provides a very significant yield of all crops. The most advanced cultivation technologies, complex mechanization of all works, chemicalization, land reclamation and much more are applied. An important feature of modern farming systems is that they differ markedly from each other depending on the climatic zone.
The beginning of the use of intensive agriculture fell in the middle of Western Europe, and in Russia at the end of the eighteenth century. Permanent cultivation of the same sites were common in developed and rapidly developing regions. That is why intensive farming produces the bulk of all agricultural products in the world. Regions with insufficient heat supply and poor moisture can only use such a system and do it successfully, growing several crops a year (including in greenhouses).
The composition of the agricultural system
In order for the characteristics of the intensity of land use to be improved by the number of methods for expanded reproduction, all the components of a complex system of agriculture must be used as widely as possible. And they are like that.
- Organization of land use should be carried out agronomically rationally, with full land management and introduced and developed crop rotation.
- When cultivating any crops, scientific justification is necessary in a combination of both primary and surface tillage methods, a combination of landless and dump mechanical tillage in crop rotation.
- Be sure to accumulate, store and rationally use fertilizers and other means of agricultural chemistry.
- Proper seed production activities are needed.
- It is necessary to protect plants from diseases, pests and weeds.
- Take all kinds of measures to protect the soil from erosion, and if this happens, then eliminate the consequences using reclamation and other means.
System elements
The above is not a complete list of measures required for intensive land use. These elements are inherent in almost all climatic zones, but other components of this structure are no less crucial. First of all, it is land drainage, irrigation, plastering, cultural work, liming, cultivation of soil-protective and field-protecting forests.
If the soil is acidic sod-podzolic, liming them is necessary, on solonetzic soils and solonetzes can not do without gypsum. Zones of excessive moisture, such as marshy soils, require drainage, and where moisture is not enough, water is needed to get the crop. Forest belts are planted in the steppes, and not at all in the forest meadow zone. All these rules are studied by agricultural workers at universities, and after that they apply a particular farming system to a particular farm based on geographic and climatic conditions.
Key features
All systems - regardless of zones and their conditions - have some mandatory features that are the same for everyone. Firstly, this is the ratio of land and the structure of all sown land. Secondly - a way to maintain the soil and its effective fertility. These signs, closely related to each other, inform that any change in land ratios under different cultures changes ways to increase fertility.
In Russia, agricultural systems are modern and productive, methods of increasing fertility are effective and progressive. This ensures the achievement of high yields even in risky farming areas and the receipt of a large amount of agricultural products from each hectare, and the cost of funds and labor is the smallest per unit of production. Each land use system has certain methods of restoration and increase of fertility. At the very core of agriculture is the worldview principle for everyone of the intensive use of agricultural land. But the system itself is considered not only as an agrotechnical category, but also as an economic one.