| Summary: | Rationale and Goals. Recent decades have witnessed an increasing anthropogenic impact on Kalmykia’s
steppe landscapes. Active oil fields, numerous filling stations and vehicles adversely affect the environment.
Oil and oil products impair the growth and development of plants, not to mention that oil products are toxic to
plants even at minor concentrations. The study aims at investigating phytotoxic properties of Kalmykia soils when
polluted with oil and oil products. Materials and Methods. The laboratory studies were performed with the help of
methods customary for biology and soil science. The work pays special attention to simulation experiments. The
objects of research are key zonal soil types of the Republic of Kalmykia. The experiments have been performed in
vegetation vessels and Petri dishes with oil and oil products serving as polluting agents.
The target test plant is radish. Numberous research works prove that radish is a good indicator of oil pollution, and
its relatively short vegetation period allows using it for laboratory experiments. The phytotoxicity was estimated
by numbers of germinated seeds, lengths of sprouts and roots. Results. The work provides an insight into phytotoxicity
of Kalmykia’s oil-polluted soils and reveals the influence of oils with mineralized stratal waters on the
growth and development of the target test plant. The paper draws up a data series by degree of influence of oil
and oil products on changing phytotoxic properties, supplemented with a data series to characterize Kalmykia
soils by degree of oil pollution resistance. Conclusions. All the examined oil-polluted soils show severe phytotoxic
impact on target test plant organisms, the exception being brown semi-desert soils where low-concentration of
oil-fuel and kerosene pollution resulted in some extension of plant sprouts and roots length.
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