SOIL PRODUCTIVITY ASSESSMENT METHOD FOR INTEGRATED LAND EVALUATION OF HUNGARIAN CROPLANDS

Abstract

Land productivity evaluation systems are developed to predict the crop growing potential of lands on the basis of their attributes. The Hungarian land evaluation system presently in use, known as the gold crown system, was developed in the 19 th century and its rating is based on profitability. This system does not give an exact description of the productivity potential of the land and includes no information on the environmental characteristics of the soils. In recent decades most European countries have adopted land evaluation methods based on land and soil parameters. In the 1980s a quantitative land evaluation method of this type was introduced in Hungary as well. In this system the effect of soil attributes on the level of fertility was expressed in numerical terms by soil mapping units. This system was again replaced by the gold crown system during the political changes in the early 90s. However, using a soil evaluation system (where the relative production potential of the land is expressed in a quantitative manner) together with measurements of soil degradation or amelioration an integrated method could be developed to express various land quality/land productivity relationships. This approach could help decision makers – along with land users and environmental scientists – to choose profitable and sustainable land use types and methods at local and regional levels. In this context, sustainable land use means biomass production with the highest efficiency without harmful environmental side effects. This paper introduces a soil evaluation methodology based on the Hungarian genetic soil classification. The productivity evaluation system was worked out on the basis of long-term (6 years) yield data collected from 1019 fields in the Balaton Upland region (Central Western Hungary) and large-scale genetic soil maps of the study region.