State of water-stable soil structure in the Central Forest-Steppe under agrogenic and postagrogenic maintenance

Aim. To determine the regularities in the formation of water-stable structure and to obtain the objective integral information about the process of break-up and consolidation of the water-stable structure under agrogenic and postagrogenic load on the main soil types of the Central Forest-Steppe of Ukraine. Methods. The field method – the soils of chernozem type were investigated (seven chernozem-like soil types of different granulometric composition and humus content) in the central part of the Forest-Steppe of Ukraine, the laboratory analytical method (wet sieving of soil structure), the mathematical-statistical method (non-parametric statistics, factor, cluster, and fractal analyses). Results. The analysis of the water stability of the structure of chernozem-like soils in the Forest-Steppe demonstrates the perspectives of using modern statistical methods: fractal, factor, cluster methods, and the method of non-parametric statistics, which demonstrates their sensitivity to insignificant changes in the distribution of water-stable aggregates within the agronomically valuable interval. The soil types of postagrogenic maintenance form the distribution of water-stable aggregates, making up “prevailing” sizes of aggregates in the interval of sizes of 5–3 and 2–1 mm, which ensures the persistent state of the re-distribution where the index of Hurst has the values of H > 0.75. The agrogenic impact on soils changes the re-distribution of water-stable aggregates, destroying their natural distribution and ensuring the antipersistent state of the distribution with low stability (D > 1.43 and Н < 0.58). Under postagrogenic maintenance of soil types, there is a stable mutual connection between water-stable aggregates, structural units, and ESP (R = +0.78), and in the total of correlation relations, the direct and inverse correlation relations of R> ± 0.55 level are >30 % with the 1.5 to 1 ratio in favor of inverse proportion relations which ensures a high level of self-regulation for the hierarchical organization of the structural and water stable state. Conclusions. The determining index, characterizing the stability level of the water-stable structure, was found to be the content of water-stable aggregates of 3–1 mm and > 0.25 mm and the weighted average diameter of water-stable aggregates within the agronomically valuable interval of sizes that demonstrated a strong correlation (R = ± 0.76–0.96 ± 0.02) with fractal dimensionality (D > 1.4) and the index of Hurst (Н) which allowed for forming a gradation scale for the evaluation of the water-stable structure and the degree of agrogenesis manifestation of soils in the Forest-Steppe of Ukraine. In terms of the rate of agrogenesis manifestation via the formation of the degree of the water-stable structure, the soils of chernozem type were divided as follows: gray forest low-humus heavy-loamy light-clay soil on carbonate loess-like clay < typical low-humus heavy-loamy light-clay chernozem on loess-like clay < meadow-chernozem low-humus carbonate heavy- loamy soil on loess-like clay < typical medium-humus heavy-clay chernozem on loess.