Structural and aggregate composition of different-aged fallow drained soils in the Jewish autonomous region

Involving new virgin soils in agricultural use requires huge capital investments and significant labor resources. The secondary return to agricultural use of fallow reclaimed lands not used in agriculture can become a less costly method of increasing the area of agricultural arable land. In the Middle Amur Lowland, the issues of environmental assessment of fallow drained soils, re-involved in agricultural use, remain poorly studied and practically there are no materials devoted to this issue. To study the ecological state of abandoned drained soils in the Jewish Autonomous region, the authors were carrying out a field research from July to September 2022. The studies showed that drained soils of agrocenoses after being out of agricultural use enter a complex process of self-healing. In fallow soils, the density of the top layer of soil decreases, which has a beneficial effect on the structure of the soil. With the fallow age increasing in drained meadow sod-gley soils, a decrease in the structure coefficient is observed to values close to the lower limit of “good” structure. In brown 20-year-old fallow mountain-forest soils it is observed a noticeable increase in the proportion of macro aggregates, including agronomically valuable ones, which indicates an improvement in the agronomic properties of fallow soils. The condition of the examined different age meadow gley soils deposits, which form the regional arable fund basis, makes it possible to classify them as suitable for agricultural use.