Use and assessment of the current state of soils of the most fertile lands of the southeastern Baikal region

Based on the results of the work carried out by the authors in 2023-2024 the article describes the use and level of fertility of soils of agricultural use of the southeastern Baikal region (Bayandaevsky and Ekhirit-Bulagatsky districts of the Irkutsk region). The area of agricultural land in the region is 48 %, of which more than half is not used in agriculture, abandoned since the 1990-s, after the «restructuring» of the government system. The region has relatively good natural and climatic conditions (levelled relief, the sum of active temperatures up to 1800°С, the duration of the warm period to 104 days, the absence of permafrost, etc.). There was proposed a scale of qualitative assessment of the possibility of using land in agriculture, developed an assessment of the state of soil fertility, taking into account their regional characteristics. It has been established that the soils of most of the territory according to the main agrophysical and agrochemical indicators (density, content of the fraction of «physical clay», humus, nitrates, agronomically valuable aggregates, mobile phosphorus and potassium) are  assessed as «good» (sometimes «excellent», rarely «unsatisfactory»). «Excellent» soil condition is observed in the background territories untouched by human economic activity. According to such agrophysical indicators as the content of the fraction of physical clay, and sometimes agronomically valuable aggregates and soil density, they are mainly «unsatisfactory» and «bad» for their use for growing agricultural crops, which is mainly due to natural factors (rocks). There is a reserve of agricultural land for use in the form of abandoned land. The soils of most of the abandoned lands of the studied areas have a good and average level of fertility and can be introduced into agricultural circulation.

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