Crop production

Agriculture was the main occupation of the peasants. Natural and climatic conditions contributed to the fact that agriculture was most developed in the south of Western Siberia. In the north, in the Surgut and Berezovsky counties of the Tobolsk province, they were not engaged in agriculture. However, attempts were made to sow rye and wheat. So, in 1861−1862, 1866−1870, the priest of S. Yugansky I.Ya. Tveritin conducted experiments with potatoes and wheat. Potatoes in the northern climate gave a good harvest, wheat did not ripen. Experiments have shown that neither spring nor winter bread can stand the northern climate.

The main crops cultivated in the Tobolsk province were rye, wheat, barley and oats. In addition, millet, buckwheat, peas, beans, flax and hemp were grown. The settlers brought to Siberia tools, methods and methods of cultivating the land that were new to Russian old-timers. The Germans brought with them new varieties of winter rye, oats, barley, flax, and hemp.

The land was plowed with an ancient plough — "rogalukha". In the 1880s, "Permian" or "Permian" ploughs appeared. In the 1890s, threshing machines, winnowing machines, sorting machines, and mowers began to appear on peasant farms. The technique of plowing the land with a plow was adopted from the new settlers. On this occasion, S. Marusin wrote on the pages of the Siberian Leaf newspaper in 1891: "The Siberian peasant is too practical to be hostile to anything that can make work easier and improve his living environment…".

Siberian peasants have not fertilized the land for a long time. It was believed that the local soil "does not tolerate manure." At the end of the XIX century. under the influence of settlers, Siberians began to use organic fertilizers in agriculture. At the beginning of the twentieth century, agronomists N.L. Skalozubov and A.P. Sukachev advocated the use of chemical fertilizers. In 1908−1909, experiments on the use of saltpeter, phosphoric and nitric acids and potassium were carried out in the Tarsky district under the leadership of A.P. Sukachev, which gave a positive result of growing barley, oats, Pskov flax and herbs (clover, timofeevka, koster).

Rye was sown mainly in Siberia. Besides wheat, barley and oats. The peasants sowed several varieties of winter rye (vyatka, Vyatka Kurgan, Omka Novosibirsk, Altai, etc.). By the end of the 19th century, wheat, which had previously been sown very little, became the predominant crop in the chernozem forest-steppe zone of Western Siberia. Among other grain crops (rye, barley, oats), it now occupied up to half of the crops. Winter wheat, oats, and barley were still grown in the northern regions.

The territory of Western Siberia provided cheap bread, which successfully competed with the original supplier of grain to the Russian and foreign markets — the Chernozem Center. Under the pressure of the landowners of the Middle Chernozem and Volga provinces, the flow of Siberian bread was delayed by the "Chelyabinsk fracture". This was the name of the broken railway fare, first there was transportation to Chelyabinsk, then from Chelyabinsk. The tariff increased the cost of transporting bread from Siberia to the west from 4 rubles 80 kopecks to 6 rubles 10 kopecks per ton, which made it little competitive in the domestic market. After the Vyatka-Petersburg line, Siberian bread began to be transported to the ports of the Baltic. In 1901, 80 thousand tons of grain were exported, and in 1913 — 740 thousand tons. Some of the bread was processed into flour in Siberia, it was called in different ways, for example, Tomsk krupchatka. In 1913, the Chelyabinsk tariff was abolished.

In the 1920s and 1930s, rye and oats remained the main crops of Siberians, but wheat crops were increasing. By 1940, its acreage had increased by 2 times to the level of 1913. After the Great Patriotic War, the economy of the region was in deep crisis. The gradual restoration of acreage began, and by 1953 they have exceeded the pre-war level. In 1955, compared with 1940, rye was sown by 65% more, and wheat by 69%. Siberian wheat is in no way inferior to American, Canadian and Voronezh wheat. More than 10 million people were employed in wheat in Western Siberia. a hectare (and in regions such as the Omsk region, most of the crops were occupied by spring wheat).

The area of crops grew even more when the development of virgin lands began. In the Tyumen Region alone, 768.5 thousand hectares were plowed in 1954−1962 (of which 124.6 thousand hectares were later abandoned). In the 1970s and 1980s, the plowing of the last virgin islands continued. In the south, wheat was sown mainly, and spring wheat (Lutescens 62), oats (Nidar), barley (Chervonets) began to be sown in the Middle Irtysh, Conde and Ob. In the 1990s, the acreage decreased again, because farms grew not only grain, but also potatoes and vegetables.

Currently, farms in Western Siberia grow more wheat. The varieties Novosibirsk 75, Speaker, Baganochka, Dorada, Lenta 45, Danko, Ishimskaya 12, Kulich, etc. have proven themselves well. The remaining crops are secondary.

Peas have been mentioned in Russia along with wheat, rye, oats, and millet since the 9th century. Its wide distribution is also evidenced by numerous entries in monastic books dating back to the XIII century. Russian cuisine has always been famous for dishes made from peas. Our ancestors ate broken, ground, grated, yarn peas, that is, fried in oil. Hot pea soup was very popular in Russia.

Siberian peasants grew peas and beans in their gardens. "I'll buy you splints, I’ll give you peas and beans," Ivanushka’s father promises in P.P. Ershov’s fairy tale "The Hunchback Horse." Folk games, jokes ("A woman sowed peas …), riddles are dedicated to these cultures: "Little babies rolled pellets, passed through the ground, found a blue uterus; blue, blue and cherry" (peas), "A gray pig built a nest on an oak tree, the children on the branches, and she in the root" (peas). Peas were sown separately as a garden crop. In 1913, 215 584 poods of peas were harvested in the Tobolsk province alone, and only 62 beans. In Soviet times, peas were sown together with oats for livestock feed. In Western Siberia, peas are currently grown mainly

The Great Russian Encyclopedia gives such an explanation of the concept of Forage crops: "Forage crops are plants grown for use for animal feed. In Russia, forage crops occupy over 20 million hectares (about 30% of the sown area). Forage crops are used for the production of green fodder, hay, haylage, silage, grass flour; they also play a soil-protective and environment-forming role in farming systems. The most common are meadow clover, alfalfa, esparcet, eastern galega, bonfire, timofeevka meadow, hedgehog, meadow fescue, granary. Less often, Sosnovsky’s hogweed, Weyrich’s highlander, comfrey, jerusalem artichoke, maral root, pierced-leaved sylvia, etc. are cultivated for the production of silage. Legumes and cereal grasses (vetch, field and seed peas, forage beans, lupin, soybeans, chin, oats, barley, rye, Sudanese grass, surepitsa, millet, annual ryegrass, rapeseed, oilseed radish, etc.) are cultivated in single-species and mixed crops. For the production of silage, corn, sorghum, sorghum-Sudanese hybrids, sunflower, and fodder cabbage are grown. Root and tuberous plants (fodder and semi-sugar beet, rutabaga, turnips, carrots, fodder potato varieties) are cultivated to obtain high-energy juicy feeds. Melon crops (forage watermelon, forage pumpkin, squash) in Russia are distributed mainly in the southern regions and are used for food mainly fresh in the summer and autumn period."

It would seem that why grow mushrooms in the Urals, if they grow themselves. But we are not talking about ordinary wild mushrooms, aspen and blackberries, but about champignons, oyster mushrooms. This is done by a special branch of agriculture called mushroom farming. Its specialists are engaged in the cultivation and processing of various types of edible mushrooms and the production of mycelium. In many countries, there is industrial mushroom farming.

Mushroom farming in Russia already has a certain history, back in the second half of the eighteenth century, amateur mushroom growers bred champignons in basements. Since the middle of the XIX century champignons on manure began to be grown by Russian gardeners. The mushroom harvest was small, and when it was quite scarce, until scientists joined the case. As a result of the breeding work, high-yielding types of champignons were bred, and the mushroom became a real agricultural crop.

In the 1930s, experiments were conducted in the Soviet Union to grow summer mushrooms, but this mushroom culture did not receive further development. But since the 1960s, oyster mushrooms have been cultivated very successfully. Currently, oyster mushrooms are grown at any time of the year (indoors) and in the summer on real mushroom plantations.

In 2015, 14.2 thousand tons of mushrooms were grown in Russia, 73% of the volume accounted for champignons, 27% for oyster mushrooms. In 2020, the volume of production increased to 86.3 tons and continues to grow. Amateur mushroom growers grow mushrooms in greenhouses, basements and cellars.

In 1955 The First secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev, met with American farmer Roswell Garst, who spoke about the role of corn in US agriculture and its advantages. Subsequently, during a trip to the United States, he had the opportunity to personally get acquainted with the American corn cultivation culture, which was much ahead of the grain crops traditional for the USSR in terms of crop area and yield. In addition, corn provided valuable industrial raw materials, so it was decided to reorient the agriculture of the USSR to this crop. It was planned to triple the growth rate of cattle in the seven-year period 1959−1965 due to the expansion of corn crops.

Party delegates were sent to the north and east to promote culture. In 1957, the Soyuzmultfilm studio released the animated film "The Wonder Woman", which glorified corn as a universal product that grows in all climatic conditions and is used in all spheres of human activity.

By the early 1960s, a quarter of the arable land was occupied by corn, for which fallow floodplain lands were plowed, which provided especially valuable hay. But as a result of the campaign, corn yields turned out to be much lower than expected and by the mid-1960s, corn crops began to decline. After Khrushchev’s resignation, the reduction of cornfields went on at an even faster pace.

The first greenhouses in our country appeared under Peter the Great, who proposed to grow greenhouse plants throughout Russia. The tsar himself followed Europe and used many novelties, including indoor greenhouses. His associates, visiting Western countries, brought seeds and seedlings of exotic plants and technologies for growing flowers, herbs and vegetables. The first greenhouses were a luxury, as glass was expensive.

In Siberia, the development of greenhouse farming in the first half of the nineteenth century is usually associated with the exiled Decembrists, whose houses had greenhouses and greenhouses. In 1857, in Tobolsk, on the initiative of Governor Viktor Antonovich Artsimovich, a flower garden, a greenhouse and a greenhouse were arranged in Ermak’s garden. Dahlias, Chinese roses, oleanders, hydrangeas, cacti, lefkoe and many other exotic plants were grown in the greenhouse. There were more than a thousand of them. Apple trees, cypresses, lemon, pineapple and peach plantations stood out among the trees. Fruits and vegetables were freely sold to everyone. In the second half of the 19th century, the spread of greenhouses was associated with the activities of horticultural societies.

Industrial greenhouses in the USSR appeared in the middle of the twentieth century, when the agricultural sector was actively developing in the Soviet Union. These were huge structures for the cultivation of vegetables, herbs and other crops. Gradually, greenhouses began to appear on a private farmstead. Currently, no one in Siberia will be surprised by such a structure: both villagers and summer residents grow vegetables in them.


Greenhouses in the North

The emergence and development of polar agriculture as a science of growing food crops in extreme climatic conditions was associated with intensive transport and industrial development of territories above the 61st parallel in the past century.

Andrey Vladimirovich Zhuravsky, the organizer and head of the first scientific research institution in the North, the Pechersk Natural History Station at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, successfully grew corn, zucchini, tomatoes, beans and tobacco in experiments in 1909−1911, explaining the negative results with more thermophilic crops with a "minimum of technical conditions". The experiments of the pioneer of the North Pechersk horticulture, Artyom Stepanovich Solovyov, confirmed the need to grow cabbage by the seedling method, i.e. using special technical means.

Zhuravsky, who essentially became the founder of polar agriculture and believed in its future, turned out to be misunderstood and destroyed in those years. Shortly before his tragic death, he wrote: "… with our Russian perfect lack of faith — faith is recognized either invariably as speculation or a sign of psychosis — two phenomena are not powerful (which is quite true) count on public support until the thunder breaks. Will our North be urgently needed by the state economy in 10−15 years? The answer to this question is recognized as subjective, whereas, if one can say Yes, then it is impossible to postpone the comprehensive organization of the case" (1912).

In 1932, the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route was formed, to which all economic work was transferred north of 62 degrees north, and in 1.934 a resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR on the tasks of the Main North Sea Route was issued, which indicated the need "… to develop local food resources, creating sub-farms, suburban farms, farms, etc. in order to liberate the North from the plant in record time." Local vegetable production, in particular greenhouse production, was given great importance. As O.Y. Schmidt (1938) emphasized.". vegetables in the North have not only purely nutritional, but also enormous psychological significance…" On the initiative of O.Y. Schmidt, Glavsevmorput, carrying out the campaign "Hike to vegetables" in 1935−1936, organizes greenhouse farms on Dixon, Svalbard, in Tiksa, and in 1936−1938 on Vaigach, in the Bay of Holding and in Naryan- Mare.

Even before the Great Patriotic War, varieties of vegetables were bred that could be grown in the North, but greenhouse farming was developed in the post-war period.

The level of agricultural technology of the peasants of Western Siberia in the second half of the XIX — early XX century was quite low, agriculture developed on an extensive basis, which made the peasant economy unarmed before natural disasters and the vagaries of the weather. The harvest years (1903, 1905, 1908, 1913) alternated with lean years (1871, 1883, 1885, 1892, 1895, 1901−1902, 1907, 1909, 1911 years).

The cold, snowless winter of 1910−1911, cold spring and hot, dry summer were especially difficult for the rural population in 1911. The harvest was 2−4 times less than usual. The shortfall amounted to 28.6 million pounds. This was especially pronounced in the counties of the steppe agricultural strip — Ishim, Kurgan and Tyukalinsky. For example, in the Kurgan district, a peasant collected only 20 out of 100 pounds of sown winter bread, and 40 pounds of spring bread.

The newspaper Rech, describing the disasters of the starving peasants, wrote: "Samovars, dresses, felt boots — everything is gilded in a Tyumen pawnshop… Cattle are falling down, people are powerless and sick. Diseases are growing on the basis of hunger…".

Migrants from European Russia were the first to suffer from the consequences of the crop failure. The old-timers had a significant supply of bread, but were in no hurry to share it with their compatriots in need. The consequences of the lean years were the outflow of the population to the cities and the return of migrants to their homeland.


Crop failures of the 1920s and 1930s.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the level of agricultural development remained quite low, peasant farms continued to suffer from natural disasters and the vagaries of the weather. In addition, farms suffered heavy losses related to the civil war.

The lean years were 1920, 1921 and 1923. A terrible drought destroyed crops in the south of Western Siberia. The peasants had no supplies. Here is what was written in the protocol of the Pustynsky volispolkom (Pustynskaya volost of the former Tarsky district of Tobolsk province) dated May 7, 1922: "The population of the volost is in dire need of food aid, there are no grain reserves from previous harvests. 1921 gave absolutely nothing. All crops have been destroyed by the filly and the drought. The available potatoes, surrogates — birch, millet, quinoa, oatmeal — have been eaten. Property and belongings have been sold for food since the autumn of 1921. Currently, there is nothing to sell for bread and there is no food…".

1925 and 1926 were also lean years. In 1927, a new food tax was introduced, 2 times higher than usual. As a result, in 1927−1928, a grain procurement crisis occurred in the country.

In 1928, there was a flood, which resulted in a new crop failure. A card system has been introduced in cities since 1928. In order to provide the townspeople with food in the winter of 1927/28, even forced grain withdrawal was carried out, as during the years of war communism. In the autumn of 1929, the continuous collectivization of agriculture began.

In 1932, bread was again harvested less than 55% below the plan. On August 7, 1932, the "Law on the Protection of Socialist Property" was adopted, popularly called the law "on five spikelets" - execution or 10 years of camps. In February 1933, 103 thousand people were convicted under this law, and about 6 thousand were shot.

In 1932−1933, a terrible famine swept the Volga region, Ukraine, Belarus, Kuban, the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan and Siberia. One of the causes of the famine was drought.


Crop failures of the post-war period

The restoration of agriculture, which suffered from the war, was very difficult in the USSR. There were not enough equipment and workers in the country. But the most terrible blow to agriculture was inflicted by nature. In the summer of 1945 Ukraine, Moldova and the Volga region were hit by drought. In the Volga region, it was even heavier than in 1921. In autumn, scanty rainfall fell in the main granaries of the country, winter crops suffered from early frosts. The farmers of the Tyumen region have grown a good harvest. However, in August-September 1945 there were torrential rains. The ground was so saturated with water that the trailer combines were falling through and the tractors did not have the strength to pull them out.

In 1946, there was a drought in the Central part of the country, in the south of Ukraine and in Moldova, and it rained in Siberia. The 1946 harvest of 39.6 million tons was almost the smallest in the history of the USSR — 7.7 million tons less than in the half-starved 1945, and 10.4 million tons less than in the hungry 1932.

In 1947−1948, nature again challenged man. April 1947 was very warm, the snow came off surprisingly quickly. A flood has begun in Western Siberia. In 1948, there was an even more severe flood than in 1947, for example, the level of the Irtysh River in the Tobolsk area was more than 9 meters.