Stone steppe. “Stone Steppe” - an amazing southern forest-steppe agricultural landscape. State natural reserve Stone Steppe.

Stone steppe... Whoever hears this name for the first time imagines a harsh area, bypassed by the graces of nature. Many come here from thousands of kilometers away to be convinced of the opposite, to see this miracle in the steppe, to worship the great human feat accomplished by a group of science enthusiasts and patriots of the Motherland.
The Stone Steppe is located in the southeast of the Voronezh region, on the watershed of the Bityuga and Khopra rivers - the left tributaries of the Don. Just two hundred years ago, natural landscapes, untouched by man, reigned here. After the abolition of serfdom, the intensified predatory plowing of land and the cutting down of already scarce forests led to a decrease in groundwater levels, shallowing of rivers, and the development of soil erosion processes. Droughts began to recur more frequently, causing mass hunger strikes among peasants. For its dryness, barrenness, and even for the glacial boulders sticking out in the fields, the people nicknamed this steppe the Stone Steppe.
In 1892, a group of scientists led by Vasily Vasilyevich Dokuchaev, the great Russian scientist, the founder of the study of soil, began organizing an interesting and unusually bold experiment for that time. It was decided to remake the arid steppe in the most decisive way, to create such conditions on it that not only would its further drying out, the formation of ravines and the washing away of black soils cease, but its fertility would also be restored, the climate would become milder, and harvests would be higher.
Dokuchaev considered the creation of protective forest belts and the construction of ponds to be the basis for carrying out work to transform the nature of the Kamennaya Steppe.
Now little remains of the natural landscape of the Stone Steppe. Dokuchaev’s wildest dreams came true. Here on the man-transformed lands of the Research Institute Agriculture A unique natural complex has been created in the Central Black Earth Zone named after V.V. Dokuchaev to combat drought and soil erosion.
The green, blooming oasis of the Stone Steppe is a prototype of what the entire black earth steppe strip should become.
During the work of the Dokuchaev expedition, and later, with the work of two more generations of foresters, a unique system of protective forest plantations was created in the Kamennaya Steppe, capable of protecting the experimental fields of the institute from unfavorable factors nature.
The forest strips are noisy... The oldest of them are now over 80. The main species is the “king of the steppes” oak - twenty-five-meter tall trees as slender as a candle. Common ash and Norway maple are not inferior to it in grandeur. But still the oak in the steppe is the most best breed. It determines the longevity of the planting.
Fallow or virgin lands that have survived to this day are extremely rare in the Chernozem region. All of them belong to unique monuments nature and must be carefully protected. Among them, the protected deposits of the Stone Steppe occupy a special place. These areas were once plowed up, and then were left fallow in order to preserve the indigenous type of steppe vegetation. The oldest of them is now more than a hundred years old.
The flora here is represented by more than 800 species higher plants, belonging to 75 families. Among them are taken under special protection all types of feather grass, imbricated fennel (wild gladiolus), tulips, thin-leaved peony, Tatarian katran, Don cinquefoil, spring adonis and a number of other plants.
The steppe reserves are beautiful in May-June, when the plants bloom. The voices of birds merge with the hum of bumblebees, the buzzing of bees, and the chirping of grasshoppers. Over all the flowers and grasses of the steppe, the legendary feather grass shimmers like gray waves. These are truly living museums and laboratories, where a thoughtful scientist or simply a nature lover can learn a lot about the past and present of the steppe.
Earthen mounds in steppe reserves are a trace of the burrowing activity of the mole rat. Unlike the insectivorous mole, the rodent mole rat spends its entire life underground. Using powerful incisors, it makes galleries of passages in the soil, pushing excess soil upside down. Like all rodents, mole rats are vegetarians. Their food is the roots and rhizomes of herbaceous plants. Year after year, lengthening their passages and creating new mounds, mole rats loosen and turn over the top layer, improving the structure of the soil, but at the same time making haymaking difficult. If a mole rat, for some reason known to him, changes the direction of his moves from fallow lands to the field, especially to experimental crops, he becomes a malicious pest.
In fallow areas of the Kamennaya Steppe, earthen mounds are often found significantly large sizes than emissions of mole rats. These are the remains of marmot butanes.
The marmot, or boibak, is an indigenous representative of the steppe regions of our country, but due to the plowing of lands, its habitat has been greatly reduced. In the Voronezh region, the marmot lives in only two or three places, constantly exposed to danger from humans, stray dogs, Lately and wolves.
Of the other typical steppe dwellers, quite a few now live on fallow lands. rare birds - steppe harriers. These are great friends of the grain grower. On hot days sunny days You can spend hours watching harriers soar through the air in search of prey. And they hunt by ear. A mouse squeaks in the grass - a harrier falls like a stone from a great height and is often with prey. The harrier flies all day long, catching mice and large insects to feed its voracious chicks.
Unmowed fallows are the only place in the Kamennaya Steppe where short-eared owls nest, making their nests on thick plant felt.
The shrubs of the unmown fallow are an ideal nesting place for the most common type of warbler - the gray warbler, shrikes, shrikes and other birds.
Entire rook settlements have existed in forest belts for a long time, and all this time the institute’s breeders have had no peace from them. But somehow the rooks suddenly stopped settling in most of the plantings. A marten has appeared in the forest belts.
The organization of a regional geobotanical reserve in the Kamennaya Steppe made it possible to preserve large quantities brown hares, foxes. And since 1979, work on pheasant acclimatization began here.
The Stone Steppe has now become a place of real pilgrimage. Over the past ten years alone, more than 30 thousand tourists have visited here.

The reserve has an agroecological profile and was created for the conservation and restoration of environmentally protective anthropogenic forest-agrarian landscapes, as well as the conservation of rare, endangered fauna and their habitats. In this regard, any types of hunting are prohibited on the territory of the reserve. clear felling, development of deposits, construction, reconstruction and overhaul of capital construction projects, free visits (without passes) to especially valuable objects of the reserve, travel and parking of motor vehicles off public roads, implementation of recreational activities outside specially designated places, provision of land plots for individual housing construction, plowing of lands outside arable land, burning stubble and agricultural fires, carrying weapons and hunting tools. The protection of the territory is carried out by the state inspection using methods of foot and horse patrols, as well as patrols using vehicles and watercraft.

In terms of objects and protection purposes, the Kamennaya Steppe reserve is a unique protected area that has no analogues in Russia.

1892– “A special expedition of the Forestry Department to test in various ways and methods of forestry and water management in the steppes of Russia” under the leadership of V.V. Dokuchaev (1892-1898) carried out a unique experiment to protect steppe agriculture from catastrophic storms and droughts. In one of the driest areas central Russia the formation of an optimized southern forest-steppe agricultural landscape has begun.

1899– Kamenno-Stepnoe experimental forestry was organized (the first forester was G.F. Morozov), which was involved in testing in forest belts various types trees and shrubs.

1911– three scientific institutions were organized in the Kamennaya Steppe: Kamennaya-Steppe Experimental Station named after. V.V. Dokuchaeva, Bobrovsky Zemsky Experimental Field and Steppe Experimental Station of the Bureau of Applied Botany.

1912– on deposits of different ages by the Academic Council of Kamenno-Steppe experimental station them. V.V. Dokuchaev introduced haymaking, grazing and absolutely reserved (unmown) regimes.

1927- an arboretum was founded, in 1929 - an arboretum. Research has begun on the introduction of trees and shrubs.

July 5, 1930. – steppe deposits of various ages and economic use and the Arboretumnaya beam were declared protected areas on the basis of the Decree of the administration of the Voronezh region.

May 15, 1944– the territory of the Kameno-Steppe State Breeding Station was given the status of a scientific reserve (Decision of the Executive Committee of the Voronezh Regional Council of Workers' Deputies No. 8058).

1946– for stationary research of the Stone Steppe, a zonal Scientific Research Institute of Agriculture of the Central Emergency Plant named after. V.V. Dokuchaev, in 1956 it was reorganized into the Research Institute of Agriculture of the Central Private Enterprise named after. V.V. Dokuchaeva.

October 18, 1968– Decision of the Voronezh Regional Executive Committee No. 872 “On the creation of the botanical reserve “Kamennaya Steppe” on an area of ​​6 thousand hectares.”

May 13, 1982– Decision of the Voronezh Regional Executive Committee No. 344 “On the state hunting reserve “Kamennaya Steppe” on an area of ​​15 thousand hectares.”

May 25, 1996– Government Decree Russian Federation No. 639 “On the establishment of the state natural reserve “Kamennaya Steppe” of the Ministry of Protection environment And natural resources RF".

March 26, 2009– the Order of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation was issued, on the basis of which the protection of the territory of the state natural reserve federal significance"Stone Steppe" and conservation activities biological diversity and maintaining protected areas in their natural state natural complexes and objects on the territory of the reserve is carried out by the Federal government agency"Voronezh State Natural Biosphere Reserve".

Particularly valuable natural objects

Many objects on the territory of the Kamennaya Steppe protected area are of anthropogenic-natural origin. They were created to optimize land use in arid climates. After a long period of time since their creation, man-made systems of forest belts, ponds and fallows function as natural objects– unique examples of optimized landscapes.

№	Name	Short description	Official status, if any
	Landscape complex “Khorolskaya Balka”	Area - 20 hectares. The complex includes a system of man-made ponds (the first pond was built in 1893) and steppe communities with rare representatives flora along the slopes of the gully.
	Landscape complex “Sukhoprudnaya Balka”	Area - 5 hectares. Otvershek of the Talovaya ravine with steppe vegetation on the slopes.	In the Regulations on the reserve it is highlighted as a particularly valuable object with a ban on free access.
	Mown and unmown deposits	Fallow lands are areas of arable land that have not been cultivated for a long time (the earliest fallow land on the territory of the reserve has not been cultivated since 1882). Two modes are being tested: haymaking and absolutely reserved - not mowed). The mowed fallows have an area of ​​35.7 hectares - this territory is dominated by feather-feather-fescue steppes. Unmown fallow lands (18.2 hectares) are gradually overgrown with bushes and trees.	In the Regulations on the reserve, they are identified as particularly valuable objects with a ban on free access.
	System of old-growth Dokuchaevo forest belts	The beginning of the creation of shelterbelts in the Kamennaya Steppe - 1893. different years experiments on creating forest belts were carried out by outstanding Russian foresters (Morozov G.F., Mikhailov V.N.). S - 140 ha.	In the Regulations on the reserve it is highlighted as a particularly valuable object with a ban on free access.
	Upper Reservoir (Dokuchaev Sea)	Constructed in the summer of 1950 for the purpose of long-term regulation of surface runoff, the water collection area is 90 km 2, the total volume of water is 3 million m 3, the area of ​​the water surface is 92 hectares.
	Colony of marmots - boibaks	Settlement on a mown deposit, surrounding ravines and on an area of ​​an unplowed mound.

Description

The Kamennaya Steppe nature reserve is located south of the regional center Talovaya, in the Talovsky district in the southeast of the Voronezh region. The territory of the protected area is located in the Bityuzh-Khoper interfluve - on the watershed of the Chigly (a tributary of the Bityug) and Elani (a tributary of the Khopra) rivers. According to landscape-geographical zoning, the territory is located in the Forest-Steppe province of the Forest-steppe zone in the very north of the Southern Bityu-Khopersky region of the typical forest-steppe of the Oka-Don Plain. The territory borders the Kalach ravine-gully southern forest-steppe region of the Central Russian Upland.

Due to the plowing of primary virgin lands, deforestation, unregulated grazing of livestock in the remaining steppe areas, the destruction of animals and birds led to the shallowing of rivers, the removal of soil along with snow by winter winds, the emergence of hot dry winds in summer, and the death of crops.

Natural conditions of the Stone Steppe

Geographical position

The Kamennaya Steppe is located east of the center of the Voronezh region, on the watershed of two rivers - Bityuga and Khopra, which are left tributaries of the Don. There are two interpretations of the Stone Steppe, a broad and a narrow sense. Thus, Professor N. Severtsov, a supporter of a broad interpretation, understood the Kamennaya Steppe as the entire watershed between the Bityug and Khopr rivers. Prof. A. M. Pankov included the south of the Bobrovsky and western Novokhopersky districts of the Voronezh region into the territory of the Kamennaya Steppe. In a narrow interpretation, the Kamennaya Steppe refers to the steppe territories that lie south of the Talovaya station and South-East. railway in the Bobrovsky district of the Voronezh region on the watershed of the Talovaya and N. Chigla (Chigolka) rivers.

Geological structure

The Stone Steppe can be divided into two halves - eastern and western. Eastern half characterized by a thick, highly elevated occurrence of chalk strata and a constant, little changed layer of boulder clay, the upper brown-yellow horizon of which does not contain boulders and serves as the parent rock for the soils. The western half is hollow-deep and filled with tertiary rocks; the moraine deposits here are reworked by water and replaced by ancient deluvial red-brown boulder-free clay; The parent rock for the soil here is boulder-free loam.

Relief and hydrography

The highest heights of 214-216 m above sea level of the Stone Steppe are located in the eastern part, where the chalk layer forms an elevation. To the east of the watershed of the Talovaya and N. Chigla (Chigolka) rivers, a short and steep slope is formed, ending in the Talovaya gully, while the heights drop from 216 to 160 m. westward, forming a gentle and long slope, and over a period of more than 15 kilometers the heights gradually drop to 136 meters at the Ozerki gully. In addition, the Stone Steppe is surrounded by two hills: the watershed of the Khopr and Don in the east and the Pridonskaya Upland in the southwest. It is open from the north and north-west directions. This relief contributes to good ventilation of the Stone Steppe. In connection with this relief, there is a corresponding location of the hydrographic network of the Kamennaya Steppe. It is represented by two small rivers: Talovaya and N. Chigla, ponds, and groundwater.

Soils

Ordinary chernozems were identified, corresponding to medium-humus and medium-thick formations, leached chernozems, in which the boiling level is somewhat lower than the humus horizon, and solonetzic chernozems. In terms of area, the largest area in the Kamennaya Steppe is occupied by typical medium-thick chernozem, which is mainly confined to the flatland type of terrain. Also on this type of terrain there is ordinary chernozem. These two types of soil account for 80% of the territory. On the slopes there is ordinary chernozem, weakly and moderately washed away. These soils account for 5% of the territory. The remaining types of soils occupy a small part of the Stone Steppe; their location is related to the microrelief and level of moisture in the given territory. The thickness of normal chernozem soils, depending on the topography, ranges from 50 to 80-90 cm; rocky and washed-out soils have little thickness; salt marshes, especially those of an alluvial nature, are sometimes distinguished by significant thickness.

Climate

1. Temperature. Characterized by large fluctuations. In winter up to -30°C. In summer up to +40°C. The sharpest temperature fluctuations occur in May, when frosts reach almost -10°C. This affects the temperature on the soil surface even more sharply.
2. Precipitation. The cultural transformation of the Stone Steppe led to an increase in the humidity regime in the territory and, as a result, an increase in the amount of precipitation (mm/g). So from 1928 to 1978. they averaged 460 mm\g, and for the period from 1929-2007 already 484 mm\g. Within the year, precipitation moved to the autumn-winter period (there are no vegetative plants). Years with abnormal precipitation have become more frequent. For example, in 2005, 683 mm\g fell; in 2006 - 610 mm\g. Solid precipitation is observed mainly in winter. Snow cover in Kam. The steppe is usually established in November, less often in early December; The snow melts at the end of March or at the beginning of April. Gullies, slopes, forests, and lonely bushes are the main collectors of snow reserves.
3. Wind mode. The stone steppe, due to its eastern position and relatively flat open topography, is a territory highly exposed to winds. However, the presence of forest belts contributes to a significant weakening of wind speed (30-40%).

Flora and fauna

Forest belts up to 25 meters high are multi-tiered ecosystems. The upper tier consists of oak, maple, ash; under their canopy there is a linden, apple, and pear tree; even lower - hazel, bird cherry, acacia. Near the ground there is undergrowth of trees and shrubs - euonymus, honeysuckle, buckthorn. The oak tree does not sow itself here. If you do not plant it artificially, after some time the maple will take the place of the oak. Although maple is a good tree for forest reclamation... At the same time, among the dozens and hundreds of local forest belts, no two are alike. Each represents a different science experiment. Forest belts vary in width, exposure, species composition and other features.

The colonization of forest belts by birds began immediately after the planting of the forest belts and continued for 50-60 years after their creation, which is why their numbers stabilized. Today, about 150 species of birds are found, and more than 100 species of birds nest (including: lark, gray heron, woodpecker, hawk, goshawk). Up to 30 species of mammals live here (including: wild boar, roe deer, badger, fox, marten, ferret, hare, hedgehog, hamster). The forest belts, together with the later planted forest belts of the surrounding farms, became a “bridge” between the original forest areas- Shipovy forest and Khrenovsky pine forest, thereby expanding the living spaces for living animals. The mole also made its contribution to increasing the fertility of chernozems by mixing the soil, improving its water-physical properties and giving it the necessary structure. It was about such land that V.V. Dokuchaev wrote: “Chernozem for Russia is more expensive than any oil, any coal, more expensive than gold and iron ores. It contains eternal Russian wealth.”

According to scientists, the first settlements in this territory appeared in the 18th century. Before this, the place was completely free and untouched by people.

In the 19th century in the current territory Stone steppe (Voronezh region) began massive deforestation, fishing and destruction of animals. As a result of such destructive actions, the land became infertile, and both rivers dried up.

Drought and famine then hit all the villages that were nearby. Since then the name arose Stone steppe.

Scientists led by V.V. could not allow the complete destruction of the territory. Dokuchaev. Beginning in 1892, they took on the work that saved Stone steppe. Voronezh region I was again able to be proud of the beauty of my lands. Scientists have planted several forest belts along ravines and rivers. The creation of deposits was organized. These are, in fact, those plowed parts that should subsequently turn into fertile fields.

In 1996 Stone steppe of Talovsky district, Voronezh region received the status of a federal nature reserve.

Thousands of people come here every year to enjoy the clean air and incredible natural scenery of this place. Here you can get acquainted with dozens of different species of animals, hundreds of different birds. More than 800 species grow beautifully in the reserve various plants. Stone steppe (Talovaya) can be proud of numerous valuable objects, including the Khorolskaya Balka, the Dokuchaev Sea and others.

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