Structural quality of soils cultivated with coffee and pasture in an environmental protection area

Abstract

Studies of soils in Environmental Protection Areas (EPAs) are of great importance, because they are an essential component of ecosystems, directly interfering in environmental sustainability. The objective of this study was to evaluate the structural quality of soil cultivated with coffee and used as pasture in the Capituva's River microbasin, which is located in the Environmental Protection Area in Coqueiral, south of the state of Minas Gerais. Uniaxial compression test (preconsolidation test) and soil resistance to penetration were used. Undisturbed samples were taken from the surface layer (0-5 cm) of the soils in the area: a typic dystrophic Red Latosol (LVd - Oxisol), a typic eutrophic Red Argisol (PVe - Ultisol), and a typic dystrophic Haplic Cambisol (CXbd - Inceptisol). A significant linear positive correlation was observed between the results of the preconsolidation test and soil resistance to penetration. Load bearing capacity of soil could be estimated accordingly by means of penetration resistance for LVd, PVe, and CXbd. Cambisol - CXbd showed lower loading support capacity and resistance to penetration than LVd and PVe, due to the better crop management in this soil that resulted in higher physical quality which accounts for higher production and environmental sustainability.

Can Soil Penetration Resistance and Bulk Density Be Determined in a Single Undisturbed Sample?

“…Soil penetration resistance (PR) and bulk density (BD) are two soil properties widely used as soil quality indicators for various purposes, for example the assessment of agricultural systems (Imhoff et al, 2000;Araujo et al, 2004;Lima et al, 2010;Mota et al, 2014;Silva and Fernandes, 2014), soil tillage methods (Cavalieri et al, 2006), physical degradation in soils (Giarola et al, 2007), traffic in sugarcane fields (Roque et al, 2011), irrigation in soil physical properties (Costa et al, 2014), the least limiting water range for various production systems Blainski et al, 2009;Olibone et al, 2010;Medeiros et al, 2011;Betioli Junior et al, 2012;Araujo et al, 2013) and pedotransfer functions .…”