Saksaul belongs to the family of amaranth plants. These are trees or shrubs, reaching a height of 12 m. With its very powerful roots, it reliably fixes sands and is an obstacle to dust storms, thereby protecting canals, rivers and fertile lands from the harmful invasion of sand, delaying the onset of salt marshes. It also keeps ground water at the same level, enriches the land with organic matter, and contributes to an increase in forage capacity in desert pastures. In addition, saxaul is a flowering desert tree.
Description
Small shrubs, shrubs and saplings, with small leaves or even leafless ones, are assimilated by young green jointed shoots, partially falling in autumn. Leaflets are sometimes alternate, opposite, awl-shaped or scaly, pointed or blunt. Bisexual flowers. The fruit is a winged flattened-spherical, slightly fleshy nut.
A desert plant, saxaul does not live very long - sometimes more than 60 years. At a low height, old trees have a relatively thick trunk below (at the root, its thickness can reach 40 cm). The trunk upward narrows rapidly.
Places of growth
Black saxaul is a desert plant characteristic of solonchaks and sands of the Turkestan region. Also found in Mongolia. It forms huge thickets in the sandy territories of Turkestan.
A tree grows in the deserts. There are 2 main types of saxaul: white and black.
Saxaul white
The white saxaul desert plant is a large shrub reaching 2.5 m in height, less often 5 m. Its leaves are in the form of small scales. Beautiful, occasionally even the only camel feed throughout the year. They eat its growth and green twigs. Camels can eat up bushes up to 3 m high and receive up to 12 kg of food from one bush. Only twigs and dry leaves (up to a kilogram from a bush) are available for sheep. White saxaul has high nutritional value: 100 kg of feed contains up to 52.3 feed units, as well as 3.7 kg of protein.
Saxaul black
The famous black saxaul desert plant is a fairly large shrub reaching 7 m in height, with a very branched trunk. Propagated by seeds. Often forms saxaul forests. It grows in Central Asia, more precisely in its deserts. It grows best on loamy and loamy gray soils with good filtration ability, especially in the presence of groundwater.
It is found on takyr-like gray soils and takyr, although here it forms less powerful thickets. Notable for its high fodder productivity, when cultivated in the form of pasture protection strips, it increases the yield of plant fodder mass in pastures located in the adjacent territory. Twigs of the plant are eaten more readily by camels than white, while they have more stock of forage.
Saksaul Zaysansky
The vegetation of the Saxaul Zaisan desert is sometimes regarded as a species of black saxaul. It grows on solonchak and sandy soils. It has a strongly curved and branched trunk. Branches are covered with long thin green branches that replace leaves. They are reduced to small scales. Flowers are inconspicuous, small, sitting in the axils of the scales; consist of 5 free leaves, 5 stamens, as well as 1 pistil, with up to 5 stigmas.
In the ovary there is one ovule developing into a seed with a germ curled in a spiral. Its wood is very hard, but fragile, it is not suitable for crafts, although it gives excellent fuel. Saksaul grows slowly and resumes with great difficulty, being cut down. There are other plant species in Iran, Afghanistan, Spain, and North Africa, but they are much less common.
Using
The saxaul desert plant, or rather its bark, is the best fuel in quality. It is very heavy and hard, it is very difficult to chop and saw, therefore, they break it. In terms of calorie production, it surpasses oak, birch and even various types of brown coal. From it burn charcoal, a very valuable coal, which is widely used in various plants. The saxaul desert plant has long been the only fuel in Central Asia . They mercilessly uprooted him, broke him out and took them out of the desert on camels. At the same time, the sands, which are devoid of the roots of this tree holding them together, began to flutter easily under the influence of the wind, came into active movement, and then turned into dunes.
The plant was used on railways, in villages and mountains. Branches and trunks of saxaul, with their incredible clumsiness, go to the construction of houses, as well as the fastening of wells.
Saxaul is also called a water scout: in those places where groundwater approaches the surface, tall and slender saxaul trees begin to grow. In the majority of plants, the root pressure reaches 5 atmospheres, while in saxaul up to 100! With similar strength, he absorbs particles of moisture from the soil.
In addition, saxaulniks are of great economic importance in the active development of animal husbandry, among other things, one of its most valuable industries - astrakhan farming.
Considering medicinal plants in Russia, saxaul should be distinguished separately. It is included in the diet of large gerbils. By consuming its shoots as feed, the gerbil can significantly alienate the phytomass, thereby entering into a competitive relationship with various farm animals. The digging activity of these animals negatively affects the plant, since they die if the animals arrange their nesting chamber directly under them.
At the same time, the “business” surface passages of large gerbils, located for a considerable length among saxaul crops, probably play a positive role, thereby contributing to the accumulation of organic matter and the penetration of moisture into the soil. Against the large gerbil, however, on the artificial crops of this plant in the conditions of a gypsum-gravel desert, it is necessary to regularly carry out special fighter measures, since this will lead to the guaranteed conservation of crops.