DISTRIBUTION OF CHEMICAL ELEMENTS IN SOIL FROM CRN DRIM RIVER BASIN, REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

The aim of this study was to investigate the distribution of chemical elements in topsoil and subsoil, focusing on the identification of natural and anthropogenic element sources in the area of the Crn Drim River Basin, Republic of Macedonia. For that purpose, by using sampling network of 5 × 5 km, 124 soil samples from 62 locations (topsoil and bottom soil) were collected. In total 60 elements were analysed, from which 18 elements (Ag, Al, B, Ba, Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Li, Mg, Mn, Na, Ni, P, Pb, V и Zn) were analysed by inductively coupled plasma - atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) and an additional 42 elements were analysed by ICP - mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Multivariate statistical analysis was applied to the obtained data. Factor analysis applied to the ICP-AES results produced four geogenic fac-tors: F1 (Ba and K); F2 (Ag, Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn), F3 (Cr, Fe, Na, Ni and V) and F4 (Al, Ca, Mg and Mn). Data ob-tained from the distribution maps and data analysis on soil samples, indicate the natural occurrence of the analysed ele-ments as well as low concentrations of heavy metals in the studied area.

DYNAMIC OF LAND DEGRADATION NEUTRALITY BASELINE INDCATORS IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

Land degradation neutrality (LDN) is defined as a "state whereby the amount and quality of land resources nec-essary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security remain stable or increase within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems". The baseline is expressed as the initial (t0) estimated value of each of the three indicators, used as proxies of land-based natural capital and the ecosystem services that flow from that land base: land cover/land use change, land productivity status and trends, soil organic carbon status and trends. The baseline of LDN was calculated with estimation of the average values across the 10 years baseline period of the following indica-tors: Land Cover/Land Cover change (LC/LCC), Land Productivity Dynamics (LPD) and Soil Organic Carbon (SOC). Three tier approaches for computation of the selected indicators were used: Tier 1: Global/regional Earth observation, geospatial information and modelling; Tier 2: National statistics (only for LC/LCC) and Tier 3: Field survey. Most sig-nificant changes in LC for the period 2000/2012 are in the categories of Forest land and Shrubs/grasslands. According the global data sets used for analysis of LPD, the total affected area with depletion of Land productivity for the period 2000/2010 is identified on a only 2.35 % of the country territory. The available global data sets gives a model SOC lev-els for the period 2000/2010. According these data, the total loss of SOC in our country is estimated on 3951 t.

THE ROLE OF FOREST ECOSYSTEMS IN THE PROCESS OF MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION TO THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Forest ecosystems provide a wide range of environmental services with an important role in the Earth’s life-support system. Climate change in Southeastern Europe (SEE) and forecasts for the period until 2070 have a huge impact on the present and future planning in forestry and watershed management, due to the observed trends: the increment of mean annual air temperature from 2,5–5,0 °C until the end of the XXI century; redistribution of annual precipitation, with much more precipitation in the spring-summer period, during short, intensive rain events; a decrease of annual precipitation and soil moisture of 10–20 %, with extreme consequences: dieback and disappearance of forests in huge areas of hilly-mountainous regions. Degradation and loss of forests leads to spread and intensification of soil erosion, with frequent torrential floods, mudflows, landslides, and avalanches. Stable forest ecosystems are pillars of sustainable development, repopulation and could provide means and resources to battle and overcome poverty in moun-tainous regions of southeast Europe.

A REVIEW TO THE GENESIS, EVOLUTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOILS FORMED ON LIMESTONES AND DOLOMITES IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

The soils formed on limestones and dolomites in different locations in the Republic of Macedonia have been ex-amined. These soils differ in their genesis, evolution and properties from soils formed on other substrates and have a number of specificities, whereby all their properties largely depend on the parent material. They occupy much of the soil cover of the Republic of Macedonia. The field examinations were carried out according to the generally accepted method in our country [1, 2]. Most of them are under high mountainous pastures, some plots are under meadows and fields. They have great importance for the faster development of some industries in the country, forestry, tourism, as well as the agricultural development in the hilly and mountainous underdeveloped areas in our country.

MOENCHIA ERECTA (L.) G. Gaertn., B. Mey & Scherb. AND CATAPODIUM MARINUM (L.) C.E. Hubb. TWO NEW SPECIES IN THE FLORA OF THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

The paper deals with the two new species for the flora of the Republic of Macedonia - Moenchia erecta (L.) G. Gaertn., B. Mey & Scherb. and Catapodium marinum (L.) C.E. Hubb. and their distribution on the territory of the Re-public of Macedonia.

CHARACTERIZATION AND QUANTIFICATION OF PROTEINS IN WHEY OBTAINED AS A BY-PRODUCT FROM WHITE CHEESE AND YELLOW CHEESE PRODUCTION

After the cheese production process, the whey, obtained as a by-product, is not valorised and remains in the waste water which is usually disposed of in natural watercourses. The aim of the study was to analyse the profile of whey proteins, as well as, to quantify the amount of those fractions. 12.5 % SDS-PAGE was used. The total amount of proteins in whey from cow white cheese was 0.73 % ± 0.15, while in cow kashkaval whey was 0.91 % ± 0.08. In whey from white cheese, the relative protein percentages were: lactoglobulin 67.29 % ± 4.99, lactalbumin 20.64 % ± 2.02 and other fractions related to bovine serum albumin with 12.07 % ± 3.05. In whey from yellow cheese, the proteins percent-ages were: lactoglobulin 52.62 % ± 1.21, lactalbumin 17.62 % ± 1.26 and other fractions related to bovine serum albu-min with 29.74 %, respectively. Predominantly, -lactoglobulin was present in the analysed samples. The valorisation of the waste whey obtained in the white cheese production, and development of new product also contributes in the en-vironment protection.

WATER USE EFFICIENCY AND PEPPER YIELD UNDER DIFFERENT IRRIGATION AND FERTILIZATION REGIME

The primary objective of this study was to determine water use efficiency (WUE) and pepper yield under differ-ent irrigation and fertilization regimes. For this purpose, a three-year field experiment was conducted with pepper, grown in a plastic house in the Skopje region. Four experimental treatments were applied in this study. Three of the treatments were drip fertigated (DF1, DF2, DF3), while the last one was furrow irrigated with conventional application of fertilizer (ØB). The results obtained clearly showed that treatments DF1, DF2, and DF3 resulted in significantly higher marketable and dry pepper yield in comparison to treatment ØB. Also, drip fertigation frequency at four and two days (DF2 and DF1) resulted in 9.6 % to 13.6 % higher marketable and 17.6 % to 20.1 % dry pepper yield when compared with drip fertigation scheduled by tensiometers (DF3). Also, our results indicate that drip fertigation is an effective prac-tice in achieving significantly higher WUE. Namely, WUE was 2.50, 2.47, 1.99 and 1.54 kg/m3 for the treatments DF1, DF2, DF3 and ØB, respectively.

EFFECT OF NATURAL AMORPHOUS SILICA - MULTIMINERAL FERTILIZER FLO-RAL MICROSIL ON SOME MORPHOLOGICAL AND YIELD COMPONENTS IN RICE (ORYZA SATIVA L.)

The effect of natural multimineral fertilizer Floral microsil (FM) (50 % bio-available amorphous SiO2 + macro-nutrients and trace elements) was investigated on some morphological and productive properties in rice at the environ-mental conditions of Republic of Macedonia, on cultivar San Andrea. Two treatments were studied: control (standard fertilization) with 450 kg/ha complex mineral fertilizers NPK (16:16:16) as basic fertilizer + two splits with Urea 46 % N (200 + 100 kg/ha), and FM treatment: 20 kg/ha FM before sowing, seed treatment with 20 kg/ha FM + three splits of FM + Urea (30 + 100; 20 + 60 and 20 + 60 kg/ha respectively). The field trials were set up in Zade design during 2014 and 2015. Results were analyzed with ANOVA and LSD test.The FM treatment significantly affected plant and stem height (2014), producing shorter plant (103.02 cm) and stem (87.47 cm) compared to the control (111.81 cm and 95.91 cm). Significantly lower biological (20958.34 kg/ha) and straw yield (10769.67 kg/ha) were determined in the FM treatment compared to the control (24852.00 kg/ha and 15101.34 kg/ha). The FM treatment significantly increased the 1000 grains weight (39.97 g against 38.28 g control av-erage). The paddy and white rice yield (9839.99 kg/ha; 5856.75 kg/ha) in FM treatment were statistically on par with the control (9368.60 kg/ha and 5907.91 kg/ha), as well as the panicle length, number of productive and non-productive tillers per m2, the head rice yield (whole grains and broken grains) and the hectoliter weight.The application of FM significantly increased the nitrogen use efficiency estimated thru the partial factor produc-tivity (97.24 kg paddy rice/kg N and 57.88 kg white rice/kg N), as compared to the control average (44.61 kg paddy rice/kg N and 28.14 kg white rice/kg N). Therefore, paddy and white rice yield statistically on par with the standard fertilization were produced with a lower amount of applied nitrogen fertilizer. These findings are of ecological signifi-cance for the rice production in the Republic of Macedonia.

LANDSLIDES SUSCEPTIBILITY ZONATION OF THE TERRITORY OF NORTH MACEDONIA USING ANALYTICAL HIERARCHY PROCESS APPROACH

Landslides are natural disasters that have an impact in many areas around the world including the territory of the Republic of Macedonia. In this country, about 300 large landslides are registered, most of which cause serious damage to the infrastructure almost every year. In that sense, the mapping of sites that are susceptible to landslides is essential for the management of these areas. This is a crucial step to prevent landslides in places where this could be expected or to mini-mize its damages. Therefore, a heuristic approach of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) combined with Geographic In-formation System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) is used in this work for the assessment of potential landslide areas in the Republic of Macedonia. In the procedure, 6 triggering factors indicating a strong influence on the landslide activity are selected, including lithology, slope angle, land cover, terrain curvature, distance from rivers and distance from roads. Through the procedure, expert-based weight of these factors is made. The LS model is produced with the summing up of the factor layers in the form of harmonized raster grids. Finally, the values of the grid model are classified according to the quantiles and natural breaks scheme. The produced maps show acceptable results confirmed by validation methods and ROC analysis, indicating that about 40% of the country area is under high and very high landslide susceptibility. This ap-proach can be further improved if combined with statistical methods in the form of a hybrid model.

PHYTOPHTHORA CACTORUM (LEBERT & COHN) J. SCHRÖT AS CAUSAL AGENT OF DIEBACK OF CHESTNUT AND APPLE TREES IN MACEDONIA

From 2013–2017, 11 chestnut populations and 16 apple orchards/plantations in Macedonia were examined for health; soil, root and bark samples were collected from trees expressing symptoms regarded as Phytophthora specific. Using leaf baits of Prunus laurocerasus and selective V8 Agar (PARPNH), 19 pure Phytophthora sp. cultures were isolated and identified as P. cactorum by ITS sequencing. Sixteen isolates were from apple trees and 3 from chestnut trees. Phylogenetic analyses suggested slight distance between P. cactorum isolates originating from chestnut trees compared to those from apple orchards. Assessment of pathogenicity using chestnuts twigs showed no differences be-tween P. cactorum isolates from the two tree host species.