Ecological problems of sandy area afforestation in the south of Ukraine

Abstract

The town of Oleshky, renamed as Tsiurupinsk in 1928, is located in the Kherson region of Ukraine, near the railway station Tsiurupinsk. The Nizhnyodniprovsky Research Station "Afforestation of sands and viticulture" is located here. The total area ​​of forest fund in Kherson region is 221.7 thousand hectares. The percentage of forest land is 3.3 %. 45 thousand hectares of this area belong to Tiurupinsk forest. The tree composition involves 74 % of coniferous and 26 % of deciduous breeds. 62 % of Cherson forests were created by man. The pine forests on the Oleshkovsky (Nizhnyodniprovsky) sands were created in the middle of the XIX сentury. This was dictated by the urgent task of fixing the sands by the black storms, using the fertility of sands in forest managment and agriculture. Completely joining the authors of papers devoted Oleshkovsky sands, their afforestation, recreation, conservation and management of the southern pine forest complexes, we consider important to mention: in harsh growing conditions of pine trees it is extremely necessary to strive for a complex biogeocenological research, to a comprehensive in-depth knowledge of pine ecosystems, at which typological approach is obligatory not from the standpoint of common assessments of forest growth conditions, but using typological principles of Professor A. L. Belgard established for the conditions of geographical and often environmental inadequacy of forest to habitat conditions; the typology provides diversity of soil types of Oleshkovsky forest growth conditions where there are two variants of soils – with and without salinity, with different gradations of humidification – from very dry to wet soils; it is necessary to take into account the extent of the influence of planted forests on the environment, which depends primarily on the ecological forest structure, which refers to the light structure of the stands and the duration of their habitat transforming influence. Light structure, in its turn depends on the architectonics of the tree crowns forming part of the forest (Belgard, 1971); using the special equipment it is necessary to create or improve the network of hydrological monitoring wells covering all environmental profiles, catens and plots, to conduct large-scale monitoring studies of the cyclic and successional forms of dynamics of forest hydrology: groundwater level, the chemistry, radioecology, organic matter, biota and also flow direction of groundwater movement (hydraulically interconnected), their degree of contamination, sanitary toxicological and other features; to explore sandy soils for content and quality of humus to evaluate soil fertility (Orlov, 1981); to explore microclimatic regimes to identify critical data to the vitality of pine plantations; with all indicators of systematic characteristics of a pine (Pinus silvestris L.), it has about 100 species. In the culture of Ukraine there are about 35 species. But, as foresters observe, not every pine (Pinus silvestris L.). gives a good effect of growth and development in every kind of environmental ecotope. It is necessary to consider the differences between hereditary traits of burned 350 years old samples of the eternal pinewood in Samarsky forest and artificial pine plantations grown from seed material taken from a completely different habitat conditions. Oak acorns, collected in the floodplain of River Dniester and planted in the watershed of Gyrnetsovy forest in Moldavia, dieback at the age of 30 years, but oak acorns, collected in plakor conditions and landed next to the first, have high vitality, intensive growth and development. It is well known that the Scots pine (Pinus silvestris) and Cretaceous pine (Pinus cretacea) do not differ in systematics. But Scots pine planted on chalk mountains near Scots pine are different. The first pine does not give seed regeneration, and the second one has acquired the ability to reproduce itself easily on Cretaceous and to hоld on barren rock outcrops (Milkov, 1959); in the study of sandy habitats it is necessary to establish consort links in biogeocenoses, their horizontal and vertical structures, ecomorphic features of the forest, its age population type, and as a result - to establish the viability and sustainability of pine plantations to the conditions; finally, it should be emphasized that only a comprehensive and integrated approach to the study of forest ecosystems in the steppe (horizontal and vertical structure) can give a reliable information about the successfully constructed plantation, its stability and durability.