Abstract
The objective was to evaluate soil fertility in agrosilvopastoral system in an area influenced by plant components. The study was carried out in the semi-arid region, in the municipality of Sobral (Ceará State, Brazil). The studied treatments were three plant components: shrub (Leucaena leucocephala), tree (Poincianera pyramidalis), crop (Zea mays) and an area of natural regeneration, all at four soil depths. The main chemical attributes were evaluated in the soil samples. The plant components contribute differently to the chemical attributes, especially the tree component, promoting improvements even without the addition of inputs.
Highlights
Since the degradation of the soils affects the sustainability of the entire agroecosystem, soil conservation practices emerge as important tools in the agro-environmental planning
We considered the hypothesis that plant components have different contributions to soil fertility in agrosilvopastoral system, and the tree component is responsible for promoting higher chemical quality to the soil
The natural regeneration area resulted in mean value of 0.8 g/kg and did not differ from the shrub component (0.66 g/kg of N)
Summary
Since the degradation of the soils affects the sustainability of the entire agroecosystem, soil conservation practices emerge as important tools in the agro-environmental planning. Agroforestry systems consist in the cultivation of trees, crops and sometimes animals in a combination that interacts and creates land use systems that are structurally and functionally more complex, with higher efficiency of acquisition and use of resources (nutrients, light and water) than the conventional land management (Silva, 2011). These systems require few external inputs, have a high recycling rate and a good integration between trees, crops and animals, which make them good candidates to achieve the objectives referring to the sustainable subsistence and climate changes (Koohafkan et al, 2012). Three basic types of agroforestry systems can be described: silvoagricultural systems (trees and crops), silvopastoral systems (trees, pasture and animals) and agrosilvopastoral systems (trees, crops, pastures and animals) (Nair et al, 1991)
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