First systems
The early period of arrangement of agricultural lands 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 the 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 its natural state, where, thanks to natural processes, the earth regenerated itself. The farming system was primitive: eitherforest-field, or slash-and-burn, as well as fallow and shifting. The most interesting thing is that they existed in Russia until the sixteenth century, and in a number of regions even longer.
Slash and Fire
In the forest areas, which are very common in our lands, the slash-and-burn system of agriculture was popular. The plot chosen for arable land was cleared - all shrubs and trees were cut down or burned on the vine. Then the land was plowed up, and for several years in a row the harvest was very good - both flax and grain.
If the forest was cut down, slash-and-burn farming 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 intensive enough, despite the abundant ash top dressing. And people had to develop more and more new areas, destroying forest land.
Forestland system
Vacant land was gradually reduced, however, there was a private property. These reasons forced people to return to the abandoned old sites, where the soil itself was restored with the help of natural vegetation. This is how a new farming system appeared - forestry, which completely replaced the first two.
The steppe regions also had their own primitive agriculture, and other systems were used - shifting and fallow. The latter assumed the development of virgin land for cereals and various other crops, and the shifting system appeared next: when the site in a few yearslost fertility, it was left under the fallow for fifteen years, and then used again.
Crop rotation
Gradually fallowing shortened the duration, and when the land began to bear fruit for no more than one year, it was time to change from 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 a fallow system, where crops and pure fallow alternated. This is called crop rotation. Very often, agriculture combines various elements of farming systems, as purely geographical and climatic conditions of a certain region dictate it.
The same thing happened with the fields intended for par. 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 soil moisture is low 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 earth is carefully cultivated with a flat cutter without disturbing the stubble. Also usedsnow retention, rocker pairs and strip placement of crops. This system is good for dry areas with strong winds that literally blow away the fertile layer, and soil erosion occurs. Therefore, the features of the farming system in different regions often differ dramatically from each other.
Transitional to intensive, improved grain system is characterized by the fact that the crop rotation involves not only grain crops and fallow, crops of special perennial grasses, cereals and legumes that restore soil fertility are included in the rotation. Also, the transitional system to intensive is grass-field, which was developed by Williams in the twenties of the last century. This is a whole complex of crop rotations - grass, field and meadow. Such restoration of fertility is used in the Non-chernozem zone of our country.
Row-crop and fruit changing systems
Intensive and fairly modern farming systems we consider tilled and crop rotation. When using the latter, half of the area is occupied by grain crops, the rest is given for legumes and tilled 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 in irrigated areas.
Row crops - corn, potatoes, beets and others, that is, those that need row spacing - with a tilled system occupy most of the plowed land. Fertility is maintained byfertilizers. Row (arable) farming system is a huge success where fodder, industrial and vegetable crops are grown.
Intensive farming systems
Intensive farming systems are called because man has a huge impact on the restoration of soils, their fertility, which provides a very significant yield of all crops. The most advanced cultivation technologies, complex mechanization of all works, chemicalization, melioration and much more are used. 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 in Western Europe falls on the middle, and in Russia - at the end of the eighteenth century. Constant cultivation of the same plots was common in developed and rapidly developing regions. That is why intensive farming produces the bulk of the world's agricultural output. 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).
Composition of the farming system
In order to improve the characteristics of the intensity of land use and the number of ways of expanded reproduction, it is necessary to use as widely as possible all the components of a complex farming system. And they are.
- The organization of land use shouldcarried out agronomically rationally, with full land management and introduced and developed crop rotations.
- When cultivating any crops, a scientific justification is necessary in a combination of methods of both basic and surface cultivation, a combination of non-moldboard and moldboard mechanical tillage in crop rotations.
- It is imperative to accumulate, store and rationally use fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals.
- Proper seed operations needed.
- You need to protect plants from diseases, pests and weeds.
- To carry out all kinds of activities 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 needed for intensive land use. These elements are inherent in almost all climatic zones, but other components of this structure are no less decisive. First of all, this is the drainage of lands, their irrigation, plastering, cultural and technical work, liming, cultivation of soil-protective and field-protective forests.
If the soils are acidic soddy-podzolic, liming is necessary; on solonetzic soils and solonetz soils, gypsum cannot be dispensed with. Areas of excessive moisture, such as swampy soils, require drainage, and where there is not enough moisture, water is needed to obtain a 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 inuniversities, and then they apply this or that farming system in a particular farm based on geographical and climatic conditions.
Key Features
All systems - regardless of zones and their conditions - have some mandatory features that are the same for all. Firstly, this is the ratio of lands and the structure of all sown lands. Secondly - a way to maintain the soil and its effective fertility. These signs, closely related to each other, inform that any change in the ratio of land under different crops also changes the methods of increasing fertility.
In Russia, farming 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 per hectare, with the least expenditure of funds and labor for each unit of production. Each land use system has its own specific ways of restoring and increasing fertility. At the very basis of agriculture is the principle of intensive use of agricultural land, which is ideologically understandable to everyone. But the system itself is considered not only as an agrotechnical category, but also as an economic one.
