Multifunctional unit and methods for improvement of mountain agricultural landscapes

Mountain fodder land, which is a reliable source of high-quality and cheap feed production for the development of the main industry of the northern Caucasus mountain zone -animal husbandry, sometimes up to 60% of the area is littered with stones that must be removed from meadows and pastures to increase their productivity. Therefore, it became necessary to create a small multifunctional maneuvering unit to remove stones from the slopes. A new resource-saving way of improvement and unit for raking and recycling of stones from the slopes of meadows and pastures with an exposition slope of up to 12° were developed. The unit implements the shuttle traffic starting from the summit grassland of the slope, the paddocks across the slope, raking the stones by comb, and, as required, disposing them to the channel that is simultaneously cut with the help of a single-bottom plow. Tests of the unit were carried out in a station on the southern slope of the Dargavskaya basin of republic of North Ossetia - Alania (left Bank of the Gizeldon river) at an altitude of 1650 m below sea level (b.s.l.), with a slope of 10°. Width of capture of the unit – 2000 mm; speed - 8-10 km/h, depth of the cut channel 120-130 mm; width of the channel – 350 mm; angle of rotation of the comb from 0 to 30°; overall dimensions of the unit -2000x2500x1200 mm. The use of a multifunctional unit allows enriching the soil with organic nutrients that stimulate increased productivity of forage lands, reducing erosion and other degradation processes of soil cover, creating favorable conditions for the use of mechanization in meadows and pastures, increasing the environmental and economic importance of natural forage lands.