Assessing soil structural quality under Brazilian sugarcane expansion areas using Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS)

Abstract

Cherubin, Maurício R.; Franco, André L.C.; Guimarães, Rachel M.L.; Tormena, Cássio A.; Cerri, Carlos E. P.; Karlen, Douglas; and Cerri, Carlos C., "Assessing soil structural quality under Brazilian sugarcane expansion areas using Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS)" (2017 Increasing global demand for biofuel has accelerated land-use change (LUC) in Brazil, primarily through the planting of sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) to replace degraded pastures. The intensive mechanization associated with this LUC has increased concerns regarding structural quality of Brazilian tropical soils. Through decades of research focusing on identifying sensitive indicators of soil degradation due to land use and management, the Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS) method has emerged as a simple, fast, reliable and accurate semi-quantitative approach for assessing soil structure changes. VESS integrates soil properties related to size, strength and porosity of aggregates, and root characteristics into a single score (Sq -structural quality) that ranges from 1 (good structural quality) to 5 (poor structural quality). Although the VESS method was developed for temperate soils, it has been used successfully as an indicator of soil and crop management practice effects on structural quality of tropical and subtropical soils. Our objectives were to evaluate soil structural quality changes associated with a LUC sequence (i.e., native vegetation to pasture to sugarcane) at three sites under Oxisols, Alfisols and Ultisols across centralsouthern Brazil using the VESS; and to correlate VESS scores with quantitative measurements of soil physical properties. Average VESS scores were 2.0, 2.7, and 3.1 for native vegetation, pasture, and sugarcane, respectively. Overall the VESS method was able to detect soil structural quality changes under LUC for sugarcane cultivation, indicating a decrease in soil quality from native vegetation through pasture to sugarcane. The VESS scores were significantly correlated with quantitative soil physical property measurements, suggesting VESS is a reliable indicator of soil structural quality in tropical soils. A VESS score Sq = 3.0 seems to be suitable as a guide for management decisions. We conclude that VESS scores provide an efficient method to identify impacts of sugarcane expansion on soil structural quality, and recommend that VESS assessment be incorporated into monitoring protocols for evaluating not only sugarcane expansion areas, but also overall soil quality/health in Brazil.

Evaluating the long‐term effects of tillage systems on soil structural quality using visual assessment and classical methods

“…Significant positive correlations ( p < 0.01) of PR measurements with VESS scores at three depths show the effectiveness of VESS method in detecting compacted layers (Table 6). Similar to our results, significant relationships have been reported between VESS scores and physical soil quality attributes for different types of soils (Castioni et al., ; Cherubin et al., ; Tuchtenhagen et al., ). The PCA analysis using the varimax rotation and components extraction with Eigenvalues ≥1.0 yielded four principal components (PCs) that collectively accounted for the 80.64% variance in data (Table ).…”

“…Therefore, methods such as SubVESS (Ball et al., , ) or DS (Emmet‐Booth et al., ) considering below 25 cm depth are needed to assess the structural quality of conventionally tilled soils. Moreover, the beneficial effect of tillage as indicated by low VESS scores will prevail only for the short term due to the adverse impact of breaking aggregates on the loss of organic carbon (Cherubin et al., ).…”

“…Each layer was identified and scored based on the criteria presented in VESS description charts. The weighted scores for 0–10, 10–20 and 20–25 cm depth intervals and 0–25 cm depth were calculated using the following equation (Cherubin et al., ).where, VESS is the weighted average VESS score, Sqi and Ti are the score and thickness of each identified soil layer, respectively and TT is the total thickness of soil sample.…”

Soil structural quality degradation by the increase in grazing intensity in integrated crop-livestock system

“…It is important to emphasize the advancement of studies about VESS in recent years, especially in Brazil, which manifest its applicability (Giarola et al 2009;2013;Müller et al 2012;Cherubin et al 2016). Although the results of the VESS have been highly correlated with other soil physical attributes evaluated in laboratory (Mueller et al 2009;Guimarães et al 2011;2013), as also observed in this study (Figure 1), this methodology provides only semi-quantitative information about the state of the soil physical quality (Mueller et al 2009).…”

Efeito do manejo da palha de cana-de-açúcar nas relações solo-planta em Igaraçu do Tietê-SP

“…de pragas e doenças, como por exemplo, a cigarrinha (Mahanarva fimbriolata) (GUIMARÃES et al, 2008) CARVALHO et al, 2016;CHERUBIN et al, 2017).…”