GPR Diagnostics of Chernozem Humus Horizon Thickness

This work aimed to search for indicators of the thickness of the humus horizon of chernozem soils based on the data of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveying. The investigation was carried out on a test site located in Russia’s Tula oblast. The area is dominated by arable podzolized chernozems, including ones eroded to a varying extent. In parallel with GPR profiling in the field, soil was drilled to determine the lower boundary of the humus horizon. Based on the conjugate analysis of GPR profiling data and the field determination of the thickness of the humus horizon, a new indicator was proposed: the coefficient of asymmetry of the modal value of the peak of the spectral density of the first-period reflected GPR pulse obtained at a frequency of 100 MHz. The proposed indicator demonstrates a good statistical relationship with the thickness of the humus horizon of chernozem soils. For the test region, a regression model of this relationship was constructed with a determination coefficient of approximately 0.82. To calculate the thickness of the humus horizon (A+AB), it is suggested to use the lower boundary of the second period of the spectral density of the reflected signal, which correlates well with the actual data. The developed approach can be used to map the thickness of the humus horizon in the chernozem soils of the research region. Theoretically, this approach can be extended to soils of other regions.     

Pedodiversity on Soil Maps at the District Level

Eurasian Soil Science - The analysis of soil maps for three districts of Bryansk oblast demonstrates that the rank distributions of polygon areas for low soil taxonomic units on these maps have a...     

Effect of weather conditions on soil fertility,crop yield,and fertilizer efficiency in the Central Chernozem Zone

The effect of agrometeorological characteristics of the Central Chernozem Zone on soil fertility, yield of rotation crops, and mineral fertilizer efficiency is shown. Four productive groups of years are singled out for each crop and as a whole for the crop rotation.     

Spread of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Listeria</Emphasis> in fauna of the central region of Russia

The results of studying the spread of Listeria in nature, among environmental objects, wild ungulates, and hydrobionts are given. Both pathogenic and nonpathogenic Listeria species circulate in the territories of the Tver and Kaluga oblasts.