chernozem

Definitions

A fertile black soil containing a very high percentage of humus (3% to 15%) and high percentages of phosphoric acids, phosphorus and ammonia.

countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“The experiments made by the beet-root growers of the extensive tract of land⟳ in Russia, known as the Tschernosem or 'Black soil', whose fertility for corn plants is proverbial, show⟳ that this earth, though analytically proved to contain⟳ upon the whole, to the depth of twenty inches, 700 to 1000 times the quantity of potash required for a full beet-root crop, is, after three or four years' cultivation, so exhausted, that without manuring it will no longer yield⟳ a remunerative crop of beetroot.”

CEFR level