УДК 551.5
Chernyavskaya A.O., Fedorov A.N.
Abstract The article examines the role of snow cover as a natural thermal insulator that regulates the soil temperature regime during the winter period. The influence of snow depth on the depth of soil freezing and the transformation of available nitrogen forms (ammonium and nitrate) is analyzed. It is shown that when snow depth exceeds 40–50 cm, freezing is minimized, which contributes to the accumulation of ammonium nitrogen but may enhance denitrification losses of nitrates. In low-snow winters, deep freezing leads to the conservation of organic matter and subsequent nitrogen losses with meltwater in spring. The necessity of accounting for snow cover height when predicting plant nitrogen nutrition in agricultural landscapes is substantiated.
Keywords: snow cover, soil freezing, soil temperature, nitrogen regime, nitrates, ammonium nitrogen, freeze-thaw cycles, denitrification
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