AGRICULTURAL LANDS BONITATION AND ESTIMATION OF CROP PRODUCTION IN ALMAJULUI VALLEY, CARAS-SEVERIN COUNTY

References: 14th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM 2014, www.sgem.org, SGEM2014 Conference Proceedings, ISBN 978-619-7105-14-8 / ISSN 1314-2704, June 19-25, 2014, Book 3, Vol. 2, 11-14 pp

ABSTRACT
The bonitation of the agricultural lands represents a complex action of quantitative research and assessment of the main conditions which determine the growth and fruiting of plants, of establishing the degree of favorability of these conditions for each use and crop. Because the capacity of production of lands modify under the influence of natural factors, but especially of human intervention, the bonitation must be permanently updated. The biggest drawback of the Romanian agriculture is the excessive division of the land property, in small undertakings, in average of 2.2 ha. This is one of the consequences of the application of laws on agricultural real estate, which did not provide anything for the protection of great technical investments made before 1989 (organization of the territory, irrigation systems, etc.) and nor sanctions for those who destroy them. The small agricultural undertakings, of subsistence, limit the possibility of investments in modern means of production. First of all, it is about the mechanization of agricultural works and of the restoration of the irrigation system. The pedological mapping and soil cadastral bonitation works enable the making-up of the graphic and descriptive database necessary for the inventory, classification and evaluation of the soil resources from a geographical space that can be represented by an agricultural undertaking or by a cadastral - administrative territory. The topsoil is studied in relation to the natural and anthropogenic factors that determine its features and respectively, the natural fertility, with different favorability marks for the growth and development of agricultural or natural phytocenoses.

Keywords: soil bonitation, crop production, agroameliorative measures