Genealogical tree of modern Russian Soil Science

Modern Russian Pedology is a young science and emerged a little more than 100 years ago. The article is devoted to the analysis of modern scientific schools in the field of soil science, which are developing in Russia. The investigations are based on the analysis of candidate's dissertations (PhD theses equivalent in Russia) defended on a specialty “soil science” in Russia for the last ten years, as well as on information about the scientific advisors supervised these dissertations and their belonging to this or that scientific school. It has been found that the most actively developing schools are the ones of immediate disciples of V.V. Dokuchaev, A.V. Sovetov or A.N. Sabanin. The schools of S.S. Neustruev and I.V. Tyurin are singled out as separate “branches” in the development of Russian soil science. At present, the main training resource centres in pedology are the Faculty of Soil Science of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russian State Agrarian University – Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K.A. Timiryazev, V.V. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute, Bashkir Agricultural Institute, Voronezh and Kuban universities. Number of soil scientists with advanced degrees over the past 10 years has tended to decrease, which is associated with the low demand for the profession in modern conditions of the country.