ORGANIC-MATTER AND NITROGEN IN PEAT SOILS

It is shown that the potential fertility of virgin Peat soils is deter mined by the amount of organic matter and total nitrogen. The effectiv e fertility of drained Peat soils depends on the transformation of the organic matter and nitrogen resources. Regularities are established f or the transformation of organic matter and nitrogen resources of drai ned Lowland Peat soils by soil-climatic zones of the country, from the Extreme North to the southern boundary of their distribution. It is e stablished that similar processes of transformation of organic matter and nitrogen occur in developed soils located in different soil-climat ic zones: a decrease in the content of easily hydrolyzable and an incr ease in the amount of difficultly hydrolyzable organic nitrogen-bearin g compounds, as well as the accumulation of mineral forms of nitrogen. With a similar botanical composition of peat, identical drainage norm , and method of utilizing the peat bog, the intensity of these process es depends on the geographic latitude of its location and increases fr om north to south on the European continent.