Aspects of the Use of Soil and Land Resources of the Nizhny Novgorod Region in Crop Production in the 19th and 21st Centuries

Abstract

This article considers the aspects of agriculture of the Nizhegorodskaya gubernia in the 19th and 21st centuries. It utilizes information contained in historical materials from the reports of the Nizhny Novgorod expedition under the leadership of V.V. Dokuchaev, as well as data on areas of cultivated crops in 2006. In the 19th century, the types of cultivated crops, the planted area, and the proportion of fertilized arable land largely depended on the composition of the soil cover and meteorological conditions, as well as on the harvest of the previous years. In the 21st century, there were no notable influence of differences in natural conditions, the share of fertilized arable land in different parts of the region was practically the same, and it did not depend on the composition of the soil cover.