Peat bog soil different types and peat capacity occupies 2.9 million hectares, which is 14.2% of the republic's area. The largest amount of peat-boggy soils is located in the Brest, Minsk and Gomel regions.
These soils are formed under the influence of the bog process of soil formation, which manifests itself in the accumulation of organic matter in the form of semi-decomposed plant residues (peat formation) and in the gleying of the mineral part of the soil.
Waterlogging of land can be carried out in several ways: surface waterlogging by atmospheric waters, waterlogging by soft groundwater or hard groundwater. The main massifs of peat bog soils were formed as a result of land swamping.
The formation of peat-bog soils also occurs during peat formation of water bodies (lakes, river backwaters, oxbows, etc.). When peat reservoirs are peaty, the thickness of peat bogs can reach 15 m and more.
The main part of the bogs of Belarus is concentrated in the Polesie lowland, where peat-boggy soils of the lowland type prevail.
Peat-boggy soils of lowland and highland types are very different in their properties, and, consequently, in agricultural use.
Peat-boggy low-lying soils contain a lot of humic substances. Under conditions when the reaction of the medium is close to neutral, humic substances accumulate in significant quantities; the degree of decomposition and ash content of peat is high.
Low-lying peat has a bulk density of 0.4 ... 0.6 g / cm 3, moisture capacity - 400 ... 600%, high sorption capacity, low thermal conductivity.
Peat-boggy raised soils are formed mainly on watersheds under conditions of humidification with fresh stagnant waters. Their vegetation cover is represented mainly by sphagnum moss, dwarf shrubs (cloudberries, wild rosemary, blueberries, etc.) and tree species (spruce, pine, birch), which are usually strongly suppressed.
High moor peat is a poorly decomposed plant remains that have not completely lost the anatomical structure. Due to their low microbiological activity, their deep decomposition does not occur.
High-moor peat has a low density, huge moisture capacity - 1000 ... 1100%, poor water permeability and poor thermal conductivity. It absorbs gases well.
Swamp soils in agriculture can be used in two directions: as a source of organic fertilizers and as an object of development and their transformation into cultural lands.
For direct fertilization, the well-decomposed peat of lowland bogs is used. After development, it is thoroughly ventilated to eliminate excess moisture, enhance microbiological processes and oxidize harmful nitrous compounds.
It is advisable to use low-decomposed peat on bedding. It absorbs slurry and gases well, thereby eliminating nitrogen loss. The resulting peat manure has high fertilizing qualities.
High quality organic fertilizers are obtained by composting peat with the addition of lime, phosphate rock, mineral fertilizers, manure and other components.
As agricultural land, high and low peatlands have different values. Low-lying boggy soils are more valuable, the peat of which has a high ash content, a high nitrogen content, and also a favorable reaction. Once drained, they can be converted into highly productive agricultural land.
“Fifteen years ago, I started to cultivate the inherited land in the peat bog. It turned out to be not an easy matter (I had to study the relevant literature) and very laborious. I will tell you how to drain a swamp at a summer cottage. Maybe the experience I have accumulated will be useful to someone. " Here is a letter sent to our website by Gennady Veselov from Leningrad region... Here is his story.
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Peat-boggy ones are cultivated in our country a little. At the same time, they can bring good harvests. Naturally, when properly processed. The disadvantages of a summer cottage on a peat bog are known. These are the saturation of methane gas in the soil and the lack of oxygen, as well as the proximity to the surface of groundwater. Therefore, to the question, a site on a peat bog - what to do, the answer with the correct solution to the problem is simple: enriching the soil with oxygen, getting rid of methane and lowering the groundwater level.
How to drain a swamp in the country, where to start? The first summer I had to dig drainage ditches 50 cm wide and 70 to 140 cm deep. They should be dug with a slope of about 1 cm per one linear meter. At the bottom of the ditches he laid brushwood. I covered the branches with the old roofing material, which I had after the re-laying of the roof. He laid dry grass on the roofing material, which he mowed before the seeds appeared, so that the summer cottage would not be overgrown with weeds. He covered this grass with crushed dry peat, and laid the excavated soil on top, so that a small hill was obtained. After its settling, the bedding was almost not required. The installation of such drainage ditches at the summer cottage made it possible to make the earth looser, get rid of methane gas and reduce the level of groundwater.
How to drain a swamp to make beds in a summer cottage.
Peat is known to be a source of nitrogen required for plant development. But while it lies in a compressed layer, there is no benefit from it. However, it was worth digging up and crushing it, as, after taking a breath of oxygen, bacteria began to work, turning the peat into soil suitable for planting. Of course, here too it was necessary to work hard. After all, in order to receive good harvests, at the summer cottage it is not enough to drain the swamp. It was necessary to bring clay into the soil, sawdust with cow farm and sand. The first few years we had to feed our peat bog also with mineral fertilizers with additives of microelements.
Peat retains moisture well and is an excellent mulch. Its top layer (3-5 cm) must be kept dry. This will save your garden from pests and diseases, and your garden from tedious weeding. In addition, peat soils freeze and thaw slowly and do not freeze deep. Therefore, on our beds in the place of a drained swamp, plants have never froze even in winters with little snow and frost.
Thus, having drained the swamp at the summer cottage, after a few years I managed to create here fertile soil, which is suitable for growing the majority. Moreover, having ennobled the site, we planted plums, apples, cherries, pears, sea buckthorn and chokeberry on it, which began to give bountiful harvests. So garden plot on a peat bog - this is quite feasible. You just need to put your hands on it.
Before learning what bog soils are, it makes sense to recall what “soil” is in general. Many immediately presented the school class, the natural history teacher and his words about the solid shell of the Earth - the lithosphere. Its top layer has unique quality- fertility. This is the layer that has been forming over millions of years.
The geography of soils in Russia is vast, like the country itself. Parent rocks, climate, vegetation, terrain are all factors that affect the formation of the fertile layer. In the Russian expanses, stretching from the southern mountains to the northern seas, these factors are very different. Accordingly, the land that gives people a harvest is not the same. The territory has many climatic zones with different rainfall, illumination, temperature regime, flora and fauna. In Russia, you can admire the white silence of snows and sand dunes, see taiga forests and birch groves, flowering meadows and swamps.
There are anthropogenic landscapes - more and more people interfere with nature, changing the thickness and quality of the fertile layer (not always for the better). But only one centimeter of humus or humus (of which the "living mass" consists) is formed 200-300 years! How carefully you need to treat the soil so that future generations will not be left alone with deserts and swamps!
There are zonal soils. Their formation is strictly subject to the law of the change of flora, fauna, etc. at different latitudes. For example, Arctic soils are common in the North. They are scarce. The formation of even a weak humus layer in permafrost conditions, where only mosses and lichens are present from plants, is impossible. In the subarctic zone, there are tundra soils. The latter are richer than the arctic ones, but scarce in comparison with the podzolic lands of the taiga and mixed forests. With a decrease in acidity, the introduction of mineral and organic additives, they allow you to grow many varieties of agricultural crops.
There are forest soils, chernozems (the most fertile), and desert soils. All of them are the subject of research in such sciences as soil geography, etc. These systems of knowledge also pay great attention to the study of non-zonal lands, which include bog soils. They can be found in any climatic zone.
The geography of soils in Russia contains information that the layers we are discussing in bogs and in swampy forests are formed during stagnant wetting by rains (atmospheric precipitation), surface waters(lakes, rivers, etc.) or underground aquifers (ground sources). Simply put, bog soils are formed under moisture-loving vegetation. Bogs are forest bogs (pine, birch there are very different from their forest counterparts, they are small, "gnarled"), shrub (heather, wild rosemary), moss and grass.
The formation of bog soils is facilitated by two processes. Firstly, this is peat formation, when plant residues accumulate on the surface, as they rot poorly. Secondly, gleying, when iron oxide is converted into nitrous oxide during the biochemical destruction of minerals. This challenging natural work is called the "bog process".
Most often, bog soils are formed during the hydrogenic succession of land. But sometimes river expanses turn into a swampy place with stagnant water. For example, this process has been taking place on the great Russian Volga river for several years now. Due to the cascade of hydroelectric power plants and reservoirs, it flows more slowly and stagnates. Urgent rescue measures are needed.
Thus, if, for one reason or another, the speed of rivers decreases, they become polluted uncontrollably. The bottom springs feeding them are silted up. But despite the "cry of nature", people do not care about them. Therefore, there is a great risk that the blue arteries of Russia will turn into stagnant swamps.
As mentioned above, peat is formed from a dense mass of insufficiently actively decomposed residues, although there are places where the process does not occur at all. The upper one, covered with "remnant" deposits, is peat-boggy soils. Are they suitable for farming? It all depends on the geographic features.
In soils, a thick layer of organic matter could theoretically enrich the top layer of the earth. But it does not decompose well. The active formation of humus is prevented by the high acidity of the environment, its weak bioactivity, which is also called "soil respiration". By the way, this is the name of the process of absorption of oxygen by the earth, the release of carbon dioxide, the production of heat energy by organisms living in the bowels of the mountain. such swamps are primitive. It has two horizons: peat and peat-gley. Gley is an earthen profile that iron oxide gives a gray, blue or blue color. Such soils do not differ in living force. They are of little use for use in agriculture.
Swampy-podzolic soils can form where swampy soils with a moss-herbaceous cover are spread. Or where there are wet meadows formed by cutting down areas covered with trees. How to distinguish bog-podzolic soils from podzolic soils? Everything is very simple.
In the bog podzols, stable signs of gleying are observed. Outwardly, they look like rusty-ocher and gray spots. There are also streaks, smears, penetrating all the horizons of the profile. The development of bog-podzolic lands is influenced by two types of soil formation: bog and podzolic. As a result, both a peat horizon and gleying, as well as podzolic and illuvial layers are observed.
Swamp-meadow soils are formed where plains and river terraces covered with sedge and reed have depressions. At the same time, additional surface moisture is observed (floods for at least 30 days) and, at the same time, constant ground recharge at a depth of about 1.5 m.
The aeration zone is unstable. We are talking about a layer of the earth's crust located between the surface of the earth and the surface of groundwater. The soils in question are relevant not only for flat plains and river terraces with similar groundwater, but also for forest-steppes. They are readily localized on sedges, plants from the family of the hermitaceae, and reeds. The genetic horizons of such lands are very clearly differentiated.
Swamp-meadow soils "live" in an unstable water regime. When the dry period sets in, bog vegetation gives way to meadow vegetation, and vice versa. The following picture is observed: the profile of the earth is one, but life on it is different. In the dry season, if the waters are saline, salinization of the territories occurs. And if the liquid is slightly mineralized, then dry marsh silts are formed.
The soils of the Krasnodar Territory are diverse. In Primorsko-Akhtarsky, Slavyansky, Temryuk districts, they are marsh and chestnut, rusty due to the many estuaries and bays. On them, the inhabitants of the Kuban grow vineyards and rice. In the Labinsky and Uspensky districts, the soils are podzolic and chernozem. These lands are very fertile. They are suitable for obtaining rich yields of vegetables and sunflower seeds.
Mountain-forest on the Black Sea coast. There are magnificent orchards and vineyards here. On the Azov-Kurgan Plain, black earth is everywhere. It is not for nothing that the Kuban is called the granary of Russia. Its soils are so rich in humus that local residents often joke: "Even a stick stuck in the ground grows here."
During the Second World War, the Nazis loaded black soil into railway wagons and exported it to Germany, realizing what a natural value it is. It is good that not all the fertile strata have been destroyed by the cruel treatment of people. But even in the presence of large reserves of gifted lands, a person must carry out agricultural work with care. Whether it is soils of versatile use or unsuitable for the cultivation of swamps, one must remember that rash interference in the life of natural complexes is dangerous for all living things.
Collective gardens are often located on peat-boggy soils with low relief and, as a rule, with a close groundwater table.
Novice gardeners strive to plant the site as quickly as possible, most often without preparing the soil. At the same time, plants grow poorly, and sometimes even die, since peaty soil without radical improvement is not suitable for the cultivation of fruit and berry plants. It is poor in basic nutrients in a form available to plants.
There are few trace elements in it, it is cold, since peat does not conduct heat well... Due to the dark color, the upper surface layers quickly warm up and dry out in spring, while the lower ones remain cold. In spring, peaty soils thaw 10-15 days later than usual.
The conditions for the formation of peat bogs are different. Because the soils are not the same chemical composition and acidity. Peat is of lowland, transitional and highland type. High-moor peat is brown, characterized by a low degree of decomposition. It is characterized by increased acidity. Lowland - earthy black, richer than horse, has a weak and sometimes neutral acidity.
Peat bogs must first of all be drained during cultivation.... At the same time, the water-air and food regimes of the soil in the zone of the root layer of trees will improve.
When drained, change conditions of the soil-forming process: aeration is created, the decomposition of organic matter in peat is enhanced, acidic compounds hazardous to plants are oxidized. It is better to start draining in spring and at the same time throughout the entire territory of the future collective garden. Before draining, consult a specialist meliorator.
During cultivation, peat is half replaced by other soil (clay, sand), fertilizers are applied and acidity is reduced.
Clay, loamy soil or sand (5-8 tons per 100 m 2) is mixed with peat (to a depth of at least 40 cm) and artificial soil is created. At the same time, the level of the site is slightly raised. In wetlands with a close groundwater table, the soil level has to be raised to 0.5-1 m. But in this case, more soil is brought up (up to 25-50 tons). As a baking powder, boiler slag (5-10 tons) of a coarser grinding is used than with liming.
Crushed slags (open-hearth, blast-furnace, ferroalloy, converter, electric steelmaking) can be used to neutralize acidity. In addition to calcium and magnesium oxides, they also contain trace elements. If gardeners do not use slags, then it is useful to add copper sulphate or copper sulfate (250 g per 100 m 2) and molybdic ammonium (215 g per 100 m 2) on high peat bogs. Salts can be replaced with waste from the chemical industry - pyrite cinders (3 kg) and molybdenum waste (1 kg).
Doses of lime depend on the types of peat bog: 30-60 kg are applied on horse bogs, and 25-40 kg per 100 m2 for transitional ones. Lime particles should not be larger than 2-3 mm. Close it up to the depth of digging the soil,
On drained peatlands in the first years of development, potash and phosphorus fertilizers are effective. Potassium salt per 100 m2 is added 3 kg, superphosphate - 4-6, or any complex mineral fertilizer- 5-6 kg. On high and transitional peats, phosphorite flour is more effective than superphosphate.
There is a lot of nitrogen in peat, but it is available to plants only after exposure to microorganisms. Therefore, to accelerate the decomposition of peat, biologically active organic fertilizers with a rich microflora (15-20 kg per 100 m 2) are introduced. Good results are obtained with slurry slurries or poultry manure.
When creating artificial soil, it is important to thoroughly mix the clay, lime, fertilizers while digging.
If gardeners cannot prepare the soil at the same time throughout the entire plot, then it is mastered in parts or trees are planted on bulk hills.... So, on the site of one gardener, stagnant groundwater is almost half a meter from the soil surface. Therefore, he grows an apple tree on loose mounds 1.5 m high and wide. First, he drives in a high, strong stake. Around it, a layer of gravel is laid on the surface of natural soil for drainage. Then he pours a hill of fertile soil, plants a tree and ties it to a stake. Around the apple tree, it leaves a near-trunk circle, and draws up the gentle walls of the hill.
The pre-planting soil preparation for each site depends on the specific conditions and capabilities.
The composition of peat-boggy soils consists mainly of components of organic origin. In addition, they contain a significant amount of nitrogen in a form unsuitable for plant assimilation.
There are two types of bog soils: lowland and highland, which differ sharply from each other in their properties. Lowland swampy soils are formed in low areas when waterlogged with groundwater. Birch, alder, spruce, willow grow here, and from herbaceous plants - different kinds sedge, horsetail. Horsebacks are formed in elevated areas when waterlogged by atmospheric waters or slightly mineralized. In such bogs from woody species, pine is most often found, less often birch, a lot of wild rosemary, blueberries, cranberries, etc.
The thickness of the peat layer and upland and lowland bog soils ranges from 200-300 mm and can be from 2 to 5 m. If this layer is less than 500 mm, and heavily waterlogged gleyed horizons lie below, then the soils are called peaty or peaty-gley. The value of peat is determined by the degree of its decomposition. The higher the index of the degree of peat decomposition, the better its properties for plants. The degree of peat decomposition in low-lying peat soils is 75-90%, and upland bog soils contain only 2-5% of minerals and, therefore, there are few nutrients for plants.
Peat-boggy soils are poor in potassium and phosphorus. However, the latter is the main element of the so-called peat-vivianite soils. The phosphorus compounds present in them are not available for the root system of horticultural and horticultural crops.
Peat-bog high (ordinary) soils are formed under conditions of excessive moisture with atmospheric waters in closed drainless depressions on watersheds under moisture-loving vegetation. Weak mineralization of atmospheric precipitation and a lack of nutrients contribute to the growth of the least demanding conditions on them mineral nutrition sphagnum mosses. Peat of raised bogs is characterized by low ash content, weak decomposition of organic matter, and high moisture capacity. The soil has a strongly acidic reaction and high hydrolytic acidity. The soils are characterized by weak biological activity and a low level of natural fertility.
Transitional peat (residual lowland zaphagnye) develop on boggy soils of the lowland type, which in some cases (with a decrease in the groundwater level or with a rapid increase in the peat mass) can break away from the groundwater horizon and lose connection with them, which leads to saturation of the upper peat horizons the waters of atmospheric precipitation and the abundant vegetation of low-lying bogs is replaced by sphagnum mosses. Agrochemically, they differ from high moor peat in a slightly lower acidity of the soil solution.
This type of soil is characterized by high level water and air permeability. However, it is distinguished by excessive humidity and does not heat up well. In structure, such soils are similar to foam rubber, which quickly absorbs moisture, but also easily releases it.
Domestication activities. Actions aimed at improving the physical and chemical qualities of peat-boggy soils should be carried out as follows. First of all, the process of decay of organic elements should be normalized, as a result of which nitrogen is released and is transformed into a form available for assimilation by plants. In this case, it is required to create favorable conditions for the development of soil microflora. To achieve this goal, it is recommended to regularly feed the soil with microbiological substances, compost, sawdust, slurry and manure. In addition, when carrying out measures for the cultivation of peat-boggy soils, it is necessary to improve by introducing potash and phosphorus fertilizers. When processing peat-vivianite soils, the amount of phosphorus fertilizers should be reduced by 2 times.
It is possible to increase the level of porosity of peat-boggy soils by introducing clay flour, compost or coarse sand.
The soils of upland and transitional bogs are not very suitable for agricultural use; therefore, they are most often occupied by forests and swamps.
High moor peat is a valuable bedding material for animal husbandry. High peat soils are the main source of cranberry harvest and are of great nature conservation value.
