Abstract
ABSTRACT Soil and crop management systems change the soil structure, thereby affecting soil quality. The “profil cultural” method (PCM) has been used to identify the effects of management systems on soil structure; however, few studies relate the structures identified by the PCM to quantitative indicators of soil structural quality. This study aimed to quantify soil structures using the PCM and relate these structures to bulk density (Bd), critical bulk density (Bdc), soil aeration capacity (ea), least limiting water range (LLWR), [...]
Highlights
Sustainable use and conservation of the soil is one of the major scientific and socio-economic challenges in meeting the demand for food, fibre, and energy of future generations
The homogeneous morphological units (HMUs) selected in each treatment as well as a description and the depth at which they occur are presented in table 1
The CΔμ and CμΔ HMUs were identified in all the management systems under evaluation, with the representativeness of the structure in the profile being adopted as the criterion, selecting CμΔ in the no-tillage systems (NTs and no-tillage with crop rotation (NTr)) and CΔμ in the conventional systems (CTs and CTr) for sampling
Summary
Sustainable use and conservation of the soil is one of the major scientific and socio-economic challenges in meeting the demand for food, fibre, and energy of future generations. The no-tillage system (NT) is one of the main soil management systems used in Brazil, but there have been some limitations that are potentially problematic, such as increased soil penetration resistance (Moraes et al, 2014), reduction in aeration (Rodrigues et al, 2011), and soil porosity (Martínez et al, 2008), which may impair sustainable yield in crops. Different soil physical properties have been used to quantify the effects of soil and crop management systems on soil structure. The least limiting water range (LLWR) was proposed as a multifactor physical indicator of soil quality that integrates the soil physical properties directly related to plant growth, such as soil penetration resistance, soil water potential, and soil aeration, into a single parameter (Silva et al, 1994; Tormena et al, 1998)
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