A serious problem has ripened in Ukraine: domestic black soil is seriously depleted as a result of massive sunflower plantings before sowing wheat. Farmers are sounding the alarm.

“In sunflowers, the root system is designed in such a way that it can grow into the soil 3 meters or more in depth and 1 meter wide,” agronomists explain. - These powerful roots actively absorb moisture, and with it all the useful nutrients located at different depths of the soil. Especially when growing sunflower, the reserves of potassium in the soil become thinner. And this must be taken into account when planning methods for fertilizing the land before and after planting sunflowers. ”

I agree with this point of view and the scientist Alexander Ivashchenko, who reports not the best news: according to the academician, massive sunflower sowings have depleted domestic black earth. In such exhausted fields, one should not expect a good wheat crop, which in Ukraine is used to sowing after harvesting sunflower fields.

“The soil is dried more than one and a half meters deep in the soil,” Ivashchenko notes. - Wheat, planted on such a soil, very much receive less nutrient minerals and organic fertilizers. And we need to pay a lot of attention to solving this problem, because otherwise it will radically affect the fertility of the soil and the productivity of winter crops! ”

According to the scientist, the amount of humus in the arable layer of Ukrainian soil has reached a critically low level, and the situation needs to be improved as soon as possible.