Ecological Evaluation of the Vine Lands in the Ganja-Gazakh Zone from Azerbaijan (Published)
The Ganja-Gazakh zone is situated in the north foothill plain of the Little Caucasus mountain province from west Azerbaijan. It is one of the large vine-growing zones in the republic. A modern soil-ecological condition of the researches zone was studied from the references and as a result of the analysis of the private field-soil and laboratorial investigations. Qualitative evaluation of the soils was performed on the basis of the fertility indices of the under vine soils (humus, nitrogen, phosphorus a sum of absorbed bases) and a main bonitet scale was composed. At this time the dark mountain-grey-brown soils were taken as a standard soil (100 scores). The ecological factors that influence on vine land fertility were revealed and characterized, the main limiting factors of the vine-growing-slope height, erosion processes, land leaching, climate aridity, heavy granulometric structure and soil salinization have been determined in the Ganja-Gazakh zone. An ecological need of the vine culture was taken into account and the special evaluation scales were prepared according to the appearance degrees of the separate soil indications. The most vine land part of the zone is a foothill stripe, but ecologically fittest soils are dark mountain grey-brown (97 scores) and dark grey-brown (96 scores).
Keywords: Ecological Evaluation, Ecological Score, Fertility, Limiting Factors, Under Vine Soils