BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH AND THE PRODUCTIVE TRANSFORMATION OF 

 STEPPE AND DESERT IN THE SOVIET UNION 



Dr S. M.Manton, F.R.S. 

 (London) 



This communication does not concern any aspect of my own research but refers 

 to the many lines of work which are in progress connected with increasing the pro- 

 ductivity of the central Asian desert regions. In the summer of 1951 I accepted an 

 invitation to visit the Soviet Union to meet scientific colleagues and to see some- 

 thing of their work. I travelled as far as central Asia, where I saw much of the 

 speedy development of the country, of the modern laboratories in the Asian states and 

 of the work connected with irrigation and afforestation, and the control of factors 

 which limit animal and plant life over vast areas. 



One million square miles of the Soviet Union is steppe and desert, and three 

 quarters of a million of these form the central Asian deserts. Rainfall of between 2 

 and 15 inches occurs in spring and autumn, but not in the summer, and dry desiccating 

 winds, at times of hurricane force, sweep from the Asian deserts westwards across 

 the south Ukraine. 



A fifteen year afforestation scheme was started in 1948, a quarter of which had 

 already been completed. For hours I flew across the featureless steppe, now marked 

 by black stripes. Each of these consisted of ploughed land 25 -65 yards wide, and 

 carried lines of seeded or seedling trees separated by low growing crops such as rye 

 or clover which prevent weeds from smothering the young trees. Three thousand three 

 hundred miles of major tree lines are being planted. Watershed lines, each up to 370 

 miles long, will interrupt the stream-lined air flow of the lower atmosphere, substi- 

 tuting turbulence, which will reduce the desiccating power of the winds. Tree lines 

 are flanking river valleys for distances up to 700 miles, windbreaks are appearing 

 between farms, and around natural erosion scars, which will not only check further 

 erosion, but add humidity to the air and soil. 



Twenty years of research has gone into establishing successful methods of culti- 

 vating trees under steppe conditions, as I saw on the research stations and in. the 

 field. Oak is being used to initiate the steppe forests because it develops a deep 

 root system in dry soil. An abundance of tree planting machinery is being employed, 

 but when acorns and not seedlings are planted, the appropriate mycorrhiza is added to 

 the soil along with the acorns. Laboratories are occupied with the grading of acorns 

 and other forestry work. 



In 1950 hydro - electric developments were started which by 1957 will irrigate an 

 area of 70 million acres, 20 million of these lying in the Asian deserts, and thereafter 

 the acreage will increase still further. The newly made dam on the Don, with its half 

 a mile central spillway of steel and concrete and 8 miles of earth wings, is sending 

 water to the first quarter of a million acres of newly irrigated land this summer. Else- 

 where in European Russia dams are being built to retain most or all of the spring 

 flood water of the Dnieper and Volga. Six hundred miles of canals will carry water to 



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