INFLUENCE OF REGIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITION OF AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES OF THE SOUTHERN STEPPE OF UKRAINE

The results of scientific research on the current state of agricultural landscapes of the southern Steppe, their ploughing, physical and chemical degradation of soils and the main directions of agro technologicalevents to reduce the manifestation of these negative phenomena are presented. The latter is achieved bycreating highly productive single-species agrophytocenoses of perennial legumes and legume grass mixturesthat are resistant to regional climate change, which has been observed in the southern region in recent years.The systematic expansion of sown areas of grain and industrial crops, which are in demand on the international market, has led to an unstable state of agricultural land in the steppe zone of Ukraine, ploughingwhich at the beginning of the XXI century began to reach the highest rates in the world: Kherson region —90.2%, Kirovohrad — 86.4; Mykolaiv — 84.5; Zaporizhzhia — 84.8; Dnipropetrovsk — 84.5; Donetsk — 81.0; Odesa — 79.7%. Total in the Steppe zone — 81.2%. Established that the plowed areas significantly exceedsecologically acceptable limits, which has helped to increase rapidly the physical and chemical soil degradation, which leads to a considerable reduction of the formation of high yields of crops. The consequences of these changes were extremely unfavorable for the development of agriculture in all areas of the southern Steppe of Ukraine, which is associated with both high ploughing of agricultural landscapes, and with the violation of the structure of crops sown areas. The main direction of ensuring the reduction of physicaland chemical degradation of soils when growing crops in conditions of natural moisture is the creation of high-performance single-species agrophytocenoses of perennial legumes and multi-species legumelaced grass mixtures, resistant to extreme weather conditions that have been observed in recent years inthe southern Steppe zone.