Study on desert agrophytocenoses on the drained bottom of the Aral Sea

¹ Research Institute of Forestry, Darkhan village, 111104 Tashkent district, Uzbekistan
² State Forestry Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 2 Universitetskaya str., 100164 Tashkent, Uzbekistan
³ “Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers” National Research University, 100000 Tashkent, Uzbekistan

^* Corresponding author: zinoviy@novitskiy.mail.ru

Abstract

The drained bottom of the Aral Sea encloses an area of around 6 million hectares, of which 3.2 million hectares are located on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan. In addition to the removal of salt, dust and sand from the dried seabed, which cause enormous damage to the environment, there is 1.5 million hectares forest-usable area on the Aral Sea, which in turn, can be seen as an opportunity to create desert shrub agrophytocenoses. The aim of this research was to develop the most effective strategies for establishing desert agrophytocenoses on the afforestationable area of bottom sediments of the drained Aral Sea and to select desert forage plants for increasing the productivity of the pastures created. Studies have shown that with the use of focal, pasture-protective and reclamation-forage methods, as well as forage plants such as chogon, teresken, boyalych, keireuk, it is possible to create pastures with a feed capacity of up to 500 feed units per 1 hectare. This will increase the number of grazed animals by 20-30%. The results can be applied to sediments from the drained Aral Sea bottom that are of the afforestationable type. In the near future, the drained bottom of the Aral Sea will serve as a reserve for animal feed, opening up new opportunities for the development of an animal husbandry industry in the Aral Sea region. At the same time, forage plants will fix the soils of the drained bottom of the Aral Sea, greatly enhancing the region’s ecological situation.