Models of the production process of agricultural plants for the analysis of the elements of some farming systems

Currently, there are major changes in the concept of designing farming systems. They are associated with bridging the gap between socio-economic demands for increasing agricultural production and the scientific justification for sustainable agricultural land use. The article presents the results of solving this problem based on the use of an integrated system for modeling the production process of agricultural plants developed by the authors. This system was applied to analyze various agricultural technologies, in particular, alternative strategies for planning crop rotations in cropping systems. For this, the following tools existing in the environment of the developed system were used: 1) long-term analysis of a possible change in the fertility of agricultural fields when using different agricultural technologies; 2) substantiation of the selected crop rotation scheme, which includes various agricultural technologies and resource-saving measures; 3) model-based approach to assess the comparative effectiveness of alternative land use strategies. The first part of the article presents the results obtained using tools for assessment alternative agricultural technologies for harvesting associated with the abandonment or removal of plant residues from the agricultural field, as well as the impact of these agricultural technologies on the parameters of soil fertility in the long term. The results of the simulation show that the abandonment of crop residues has a positive effect on the dynamics of humus in the soil and on the nitrogen content in the meter soil layer. In the second part of the article, the results of the analysis of the comparative effectiveness of various crop rotation schemes and such agricultural activities as the application of organic fertilizers, the use of leguminous and winter catch crops are presented. The analysis made it possible to rank these measures in terms of the effectiveness of the impact on agricultural production; the use of organic fertilizers (manure) and including legumes in the crop rotation were the most effective ones. The presented results demonstrate the potential demand for the proposed methods and the developed integrated system for modeling the production process of agricultural plants to substantiate the elements of farming systems and analyze their impact on sustainable development.