Three nominal prizes of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (LMA) have been awarded this year. Jonas Kriščiūnas prize (agricultural sciences) was awarded to dr. Eugenija Bakšienė for her research work “The application of lake sapropel for fertilization of light-textured soils”.
Dr. Eugenija Bakšienė is the head researcher of the Vokė Branch of the LAMMC Institute of Agriculture. Her research interests include ecology, organic fertilizers, soil science, agrochemistry, agricultural and energy crop production, plant phenological observations.
The work submitted for the competition stood out from other works with a unique research object - lake sapropel, a valuable organic matter, and its long-term complex evaluation in terms of its efficiency in the agroecosystem. A solution to a scientific problem based on the long-term research (improvement of low-yielding soil using sapropel) is presented. The data from the long-term field experiments, started in 1984, have been published in highly rated scientific national and international journals, monographs, and books. The work is important in the development of sustainable agricultural technologies for the country’s low-fertility soils by supplementing them with organic carbon compounds and increasing their sorption and moisture and nutrition regimes. The work is also significant in terms of the environmental protection, as the use of sapropel for fertilization helps to clean the country’s lakes and restore their condition and functional purpose.
