EURO-ECO 2011 Hanover 21 - 22 November 2011	Environmental, Engineering - Economic and Legal Aspects for Sustainable Living
	European Academy of Natural Sciences, Hanover European Scientific Society, Hanover University of Bremen, Bremen

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The article presents innovative methods of mechanical processing of soil and environmental aspects of modern agriculture.

Strategic goal of modern land-utilization is elaborating innovative soil mechanical processing technologies which preserve its original ecological characteristics and parameters. Ecological parameters of the environment have been changed dramatically through soil utilization. High-quality soil processing promotes environmental stabilization. This affects notably productivity of agricultural crops.

At present, half of croplands in Russia have an insufficient content of humus, quarter of them requires liming, over 20 mln ha require gypsuming and reclamation, almost 60% of sown areas are at risk of soil erosion. Annually, almost 3 bln tons of fertile soil are lost due to soil ablation and eolation, which is equivalent to 40-42 mln tons of nutrient substances. Thus, the soil loses more nutrients than it receives with fertilizers. Gullies continue to appear at an average rate of 1-1,5 m per year. Erosion and degradation of the plough-layer leads to decrease of croplands productivity. The lost harvest on erose soils reaches 30%.

Besides, as field works in agriculture got more intense, the problem of soil thickening under influence of machine-tractor aggregates arose.

Due to quantitative increase of mobile machinery units within last 20-25 years, the soil upper layers have become 1,3-1,4 times harder, while depth of the packed layer reaches 1,5 m

Mechanical processing leads to soil structure destruction, intensification of organic matters mineralization, air and water imbalance when overdried or overwetted soils are processed. Thus, mechanical processing is a powerful regulator of not only soil-forming but also of soil-destroying processes. Hence, ecologization of mechanical processing, first of all, means strengthening soil-forming factors, among which:

• Preservation of optimal density of the processed layer of soil;
• Optimal crumbliness of soil;
• Maximal resistance to erosive processes (wash-out and blowing);
• Preservation of structural micro- and macroaggregates to preserve mechanical strength and wash-out resistance;
• Providing the correct structure of the processed layer, making the upper bed for seeds loose and the lower one - packed;
• Conservation and accumulation of soil humus;
• Providing optimal conditions for vital activity of live soil medium;
• Decompaction of plough-layer and underplough-layer of soil;
• Expansion of root soil layer.

From the above said one can conclude that the key problem in technical solutions for environmentally friendly mechanical processing of soil is the problem of plough-layer expansion.

By ecology of plough-layer we mean degree of deviation of physical and agrobiological parameters of soil from optimal requirements of agricultural crops due to man’s impact. That is why the need has appeared to establish criteria of environmentally safe mechanical loading on soil. However, so far several ecological criteria of soil processing have been taken as a basis.

Soil crumbliness degree can be offered as one of such criteria. P.U. Bakhtin offered an estimative scale of crumbliness and diffusivity of the arable land cultivated by mouldboard plough. Such arable land is considered to be very good if it contains 90-100% of lumps of size under 50 mm and under 5% of dust; good if it contains 70-90% of lumps and 5-20% of dust; satisfactory if it contains 50-70% of lumps and over 20% of dust. However, it should be recognized that soil crumbliness and diffusivity degree is far from being enough to determine ecological stability of the arable layer.

Another indicator of soil mechanical processing quality can be density (volume weight) of soil because soil density is a complex indicator which depends on soil’s micro- and macrostructure, texture, humus content, structural properties, correlation of its constituent phases, etc. It was found out that each crop and each soil type requires a determinate optimal density providing the most favourable conditions for them.

But so far there are no overall indexes of optimal density for all soil types and various regions.

A new set of machines for processing heavy and stone soils before potatoes sowing and harvesting with combine has been introduced in production practice as innovative technological solution for environmentally friendly mechanical processing of soil: ridger GO-2 and separator-racker SU-1,4