Methods for improvement of mountain agricultural landscapes

. The authors presented the results of research and development, on the basis of which a new resource-saving method and unit for raking and recycling stones from the slopes of meadows and pastures with an exposure slope of up to 12° was designed and created in order to improve, reduce erosion processes and increase the productivity of mountain slope areas. The purpose of the research is to develop a new method of improvement and a prototype of a mounted stone harvesting unit for slope natural forage lands with the utilization of small and medium-sized stones in simultaneously cut channels. The object of research is the working bodies for raking stones with a diameter of more than 50 mm (comb) and a special plow that cuts channels for their subsequent disposal. The novelty of the technical solution is that for the first time the small-sized chisel cultivator KPG-2, 4 is equipped with new working bodies for removing stones from slope meadows and pastures. The developed unit carries out Shuttle movement, starting from the top of the meadow part of the slope, corrals across the slope, raking stones with a comb, and, as necessary, disposing of them in the channel, simultaneously cut with the help of a single-body plow. The unit was tested in a hospital on the southern slope of the Dargava basin of the RSO-Alania (left Bank of the Gizeldon river) at an altitude of 1650 m below sea level, with a slope of 10°. The use of the developed unit allows enriching the soil with organic nutrients that stimulate the increase in the productivity of forage lands, reduce erosion and other degradation processes of the soil cover, create favorable conditions for the use of mechanization tools in meadows and pastures increase the environmental and economic significance of natural forage lands.