KNOWLEDGE AND RECORDING OF THE SOLAR-ACTIVITY PATTERN FOR IMPROVED FORECASTING OF MASS REPRODUCTION AMONG HARMFUL SPECIES The planned socialist economy demands that agriculture be administered strictly according to scientific principles. Agricultural pests cause tremendous damage assessed at 45 billion old rubles* per year. The necessity for a well-organized government system for the protection of plants is obvious. However, maximum control of pests and diseases of cultivated plants cannot be achieved, even with the best organization, unless it is based on a comprehensive and thorough knowledge of the patterns governing the development and proliferation of harmful organisms, and of the effect on these processes of environmental factors including solar radiation and the activities of man himself.
Together with the best methods of pest control one of the decisive factors in plant protection should be the forecast and warning of the appearance of the most dangerous mass pests such as locusts, grain moth, E u r y g a s t e r i n t e g r i c e p s, and others, as well as certain species of rodents. The earlier the forecasts are made, and the more accurately defined the areas of potential mass outbreak of each plant pest, as well as the intensity of the expected epiphyte, the more effective will be the measures adopted for the crop protection.
The cyclic variability of the Sun has long been known /1/. Without dis cussing the complex causes of the Sun's physical instability (resulting from the release of nuclear energy), we should note that the cycle of 11.4 years (usually referred to simply as the 11-year cycle) has been well established, after having been followed accurately over more than three centuries.
In addition there is another known cycle of solar activity of 22-23 years. According to their magnetic properties, the 11-year solar variations could justly be considered half-cycles of the 22-23-year cycle. There is also the 36-year cycle (average duration) which was established by E. Bruckner.
Many scientists have confirmed the continued manifestations of the 36-year cycle in the course of the past millenia.
The fullest scientific data are available for the 11-year and the double [22-23-year] cycles of solar activity. The most easily detected signs of increasing solar activity are the sunspots, which are actually giant vortices, or cyclones, consisting of fluxes of electrically charged particles moving at tremendous velocities.
In the years of minimum solar activity the solar disk is devoid of sun spots for several months, and there is also an attenuation in other signs of its activity. Increasing activity is accompanied with an increase in the number of spots which appear in groups, attaining enormous dimensions. Such sunspots have been thoroughly investigated and described in detail.
In 1947, the year of maximum activity of the previous 11-year cycle, there appeared a group of sunspots on 7 April which extended over an area of 180 billion The spots grew rapidly starting early in February, reached a maximum in April, and disappeared in 11 May.
Such sunspots are clearly visible on the Sun when viewed through a smoked glass. Naturalists have recorded sunspots since the construction of the first telescope in 1610. However, more accurate records (monthly) have been available from 1749. Since sunspots reflect solar activity, Wolf numbers (W) were adopted as the index of this activity.
According to academician L. S. Berg /3/, "Solar activity has followed approximately the same 11-year cycle since most ancient times, i. e., throughout the past half billion years. Climatic cycles of several decades, such as those recorded inthe last centuries, also occurred 500 million years ago." Berg maintained that layers deposited in southwestern Africa, approximately 500 million years ago, and similar deposits in the USA and Western Europe revealed the cycles of 11.4-11.5 years corresponding to the contemporary periodicity of sunspots.