Effects of land use, tillage management, and crop diversification on soil physical quality in Cerrado agricultural systems

Abstract

Sustainable agricultural intensificationhas been considered one of the solutions for increasing food production and mitigating climate changes. Nevertheless, soil physical degradation induced by intense mechanization may threaten those benefits in large-scale agricultural regions such as the Brazilian Cerrado. Thus, our study aimed to assess the effects of land use, tillage management, and crop diversification on soil physical quality of two long-term experiments in Cerrado through on-farm visual evaluation of soil structure (VESS) and soil physical parameters. Soil sampling was performed in 0-to-10-and 10-to-20-cm layers of four agricultural systems: soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]-fallow under conventional tillage (SF); soybean-fallow under no-till (SN); soybean-maize (Zea mays L.) succession under no-till (SM); and crop rotation under no-till including soybean, maize, grasses, and legumes (CR). An additional area of native Cerrado vegetation (NV) was included as reference. Land transition from Cerrado to agricultural systems declined the soil physical quality, detected by VESS assessment and physical parameters in both layers. Tillage management did not alter soil physical parameters, which was likely associated with the medium time adoption in the experiments (9 yr) and high resilience capacity of clayey Oxisols. Unexpectedly, SM and CR negatively affected the porosity-and water-associated soil parameters in the 10-to-20-cm layer compared with SN. It suggests that the soil physical damage induced by higher frequency of machinery operations required to manage a more diverse crop sequence may prevail over the benefits provided by crop diversification. Finally, this study highlights that intensified agricultural systems need to be coupled with strategies to reduce and/or control intensive machinery traffic.

Effects of ecological intensification of agriculture on soil fertility and carbon and nitrogen stocks: An 8‐year study in southern Brazil

“…An increase in soil C stock as a result of crop diversity was also attributed to straw chemical composition (de Carvalho et al., 2022). Moreover, plant diversity can improve soil physical properties, such as aggregate stability, water‐holding capacity, less macroporosity and more microporosity (Gould et al., 2016; Sattolo et al., 2021). In the present study, the EI tended to have lower soil BD than the FP system, which could optimize soil quality and contribute to enhancing soil C stocks.…”

“…The experiment was conducted from 2011 to 2019 in the experimental area of the ABC Foundation in Ponta Grossa, Brazil (25°00′46″ S, 50°09′06″ W, 885 m alt.). The experiment was part of the ‘Global Maize Project’ of the International Plant Nutrition Institute (Caviglia et al., 2019; Sattolo et al., 2021; Zhao et al., 2016). The experimental area was cultivated with annual crops in a no‐till system since 2007, which include maize–soybean rotation as major crops during summer and black oats and wheat as winter crops.…”

Post‐paddy tillage affects soil physical processes of rain‐fed rice–wheat rotation

“…Soil physical properties are used as indicators to assess the shape, stability, and function of soil structure (Sattolo et al., 2021), and good soil structure is helpful for crop growth. In an RFRW rotation system, current management systems retain water for the rice and drain the water for the wheat.…”

“…The rice ( Oryza sativa L.)–wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) rotation is a widely distributed farming system worldwide, occupying approximately 24 million ha in Asia (Bhandari et al., 2002), among which 10.5 million ha are distributed in the Yangtze River basin, China (Yadvinder‐Singh et al., 2004). Sustainable agricultural intensification is considered one of the solutions for increasing food production and mitigating climate change (Sattolo et al., 2021). However, the rice–wheat system is increasingly facing a sustainability problem that has received intense attention in the last decades.…”

Research, analysis and optimization of the drive characteristics of the drive wheel of the machine tiller based on SPH method

“…How to improve the traction and attachment performance of ship-type farm machinery in field operations, improve their operating efficiency and reduce fuel consumption literature [4]. In today's era of promoting agriculture with science and technology and vigorously advocating the development of high-tech agriculture, it is not only of great practical significance but also of great economic significance in literature [5][6]. The literature [7][8] points out that the development of modern agricultural machine dynamics requires not only a drive wheel model that reflects physical reality but also a mathematical model of the drive wheel that can meet the research needs of different aspects of agricultural machines.…”