Soils and the soils of Central Asia

The soils of Central Asia fall into four main groups: desert soils, gray soils (serozems), mountain forest-steppe soils and high-mountain soils. The desert zone has grey-brown, takyr and takyr-like, sandy soils and meadow-alluvial soils of river deltas; they contain very little humus (about 0.2–1.5 percent) and are often saline. Gray soils formed on loess at the foot of the Tien Shan, Pamir-Alay and Kopet Dag, at heights from about 300 to 1000–1100 m in the north and up to 1400–1500 m in the south. Gray soils get richer in humus higher up the mountain (1–1.5 percent in light gray, 1.5–2.5 in typical gray and 2.5–4 percent in dark gray); the region’s irrigated farmland lies mostly in this zone. The mountain forest-steppe zone has the most fertile soils, with 4–6 percent humus, and above it come subalpine and alpine meadow soils.