Improvement effect on the productivity of degraded grasslands

Abstract

Following the breakup of the old USSR there has been a large-scale decline in production and increased land abandonment in Ukraine. In the long term, bringing this land into the sustainable agricultural production represents an opportunity to address the increased demand for global food production that will be needed in the forthcoming years. Any land improvement needs to be based on the scientific knowledge of best outcomes. The outcomes of ourstudies have resulted in different recommendations on the methods of degraded grasslands improvement. Three experiments were carried out in order to measure the effects of different improvement methods on degraded meadows situated in the lowland Ukraine. Only a very limited number of improvements, including the surface improvement by fertilizers and radical improvement by the seeding of the grass-legume mixtures are considered suitable for lowland. Detailed comparison of surface improvement using the 1800 turning capacity plough and no-till technology on equally degraded meadows situated in the lowland highlighted the advantages of the no-till technology in the annual DM production. Significant differences in the dry-matter yield supported the hypothesis that no-till farming increased the forage resources and solved the equation of the highest possible conversion of the feeding stuff into herbage under minimal costs.