Evaluation and comparison of soil under integrated crop‐livestock-forest system in the southeast of Gois, Brazil

Abstract

The integrated crop-livestock-forest (ICLF) has been indicated as an important alternative of agricultural production, in economic and environmental terms. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the chemical properties of soil under the system on integrated crop-livestock-forest in the Santa Brígida Farm, Ipameri City, southeast of Goiás State, Brazil. It was used a completely randomized design in a 4 × 2, with four replications. The analyzed factors consisted of four land uses (SS2 = Eucalyptus sp. 2 years age + Urochloa brizantha grass, SS6 = Eucalyptus sp. 6 years age + U. brizantha grass, ILF = corn + U. brizantha grass and RF = remaining forest -control) combined with two different depths of the soil (0-20 and 20-40 cm). Data from soil analyzes were used to generate the cluster analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) using the R program. In both depths was checked the grouping of sampled areas in three groups: One containing the ILF and SS2 areas samples of, which were the most similar to each other; a second group containing SS6 area samples; and a third group containing the remaining forest samples. A gradual variation in organic matter, Ca + Mg, H + Al, K and pH, CEC and V% can be observed in the samples of 0-20 cm layer, where in the remaining forest area was with the highest values of these variables, follow by the areas SS6, ILF and SS2 respectively. In the layer soil 20-40 cm depth, SS6 area stood out in relation to Ca + Mg, pH, CEC and V%. It can be concluded that the ICLF is a promising production system to be deployed, especially in areas with the purpose of recovering degraded pastures.

August 2022

“…The search for sustainability in Brazilian agricultural systems has led to diversification and integration of activities on rural property (Bonaudo et al, 2014;Lemaire et al, 2014;Paula et al, 2017). In this context, intercropping of annual crops with tropical forage grasses, being used in crop-livestock integration systems has been increasingly adopted by farmers in the Cerrado region (Loss et al, 2012;Oliveira et al, 2015;Paula et al, 2017). The system in question allows the cultivation of crops for grain and straw production, aiming to cover the soil or the formation of grazing pastures (Moraes et al, 2014).…”