Grassing as an ecological factor of transformation of the solonetz and its microflora

One of the global environmental problems is soil salinization, including secondary one, covering about 950 million hectares in terrestrial ecosystems. In Western Siberia, about 40 % of the territory is represented by solonetzic soils and their full use is associated with gypsuming (which is expensive) or long-term reclamation with grasses. Herbs-phytomeliorants are not only many times more productive than natural meadows, but also have a desalinating effect. To increase the yield of fodder crops on solonetzic lands, specialists of the Siberian Research Institute of Feed in the 80s of the last century developed phytomeliorative crop rotations. The article examines the effect of grassing of forage crop rotations with a mixture of brome (Bromus inermis Leyss.) and alfalfa (Medicago varia Mart.) for thirteen years on the microflora of meadow (hydromorphic) solonetzes (Gleyic Solonetz Albic.). Grassing after forage crop rotation led to an improvement in the water-air regime of solonetzic soils, as well as to a significant desalinization of the upper soil horizon and a decrease in its alkalinity. Long-term cultivation of fodder crop rotations and subsequent grassing formed a specific soil microbiocenosis, characterized by a taxonomic diversity of microorganisms and a greater proportion of copiotrophs in the dominant phyla, which indirectly indicates an increase in the carbon content and nitrogen available to plants in the phytomeliorated solonetz.