Abstract
Application of poultry litter may lead to major changes in the structural and functional properties of soil. Understanding these alterations is crucial for assessing the effect of organic wastes on the soil quality and attributes. The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of use of poultry litter on increased organic matter, microbiological activity and physicochemical properties of soils in the Brazilian Cerrado and identify a group of expressive indicators of changes for the assessed attributes. The research was conducted in Fazenda Alvorada, a farm located in Portelândia/GO (Brazil), consisting of the following accumulated doses of turkey litter: T0 (without application); T1 (26.32 Mg ha-1); T2 (43.15 Mg ha-1); T3 (57.6 Mg ha-1). The experimental design consisted of randomized blocks and four replications. Sequential applications of poultry litter provide increases in the variables related to organic matter, mainly in particulate nitrogen and total nitrogen stocks. Applications of lower doses resulted in increases of microbial biomass carbon and microbial quotient. Concerning soil physicochemical properties, available phosphorus, the sum of bases and base saturation were the variables that exhibited the most significant changes with increased doses of poultry litter. The metabolic quotient was the most expressive indicator to represent soil alterations resulting from application of poultry litter.
Highlights
The poultry industry has grown significantly over the world and the large amounts of wastes produced by this activity have become an environmental concern since their improper disposal may contaminate soils and waters (Kominko et al, 2017)
In the principal components analysis for the set of variables relating to soil organic matter, it can be seen that the Principal Component 1 (PC1), which explains 76.8% of the total data variation, is positively correlated with the increased doses of poultry litter and an increase of S-total organic carbon (TOC), S-total nitrogen (TN), S-POC and S-NPOM and negatively correlated with total C/N ratio (Figure 1)
The principal components analysis (PCA) indicated that increased poultry litter doses applied to soil provided an increase of the soil organic matter (SOM), which can be seen in the formation of three distinct groups, showing a direct relation of the organic residue added to the soil with increased SOM
Summary
The poultry industry has grown significantly over the world and the large amounts of wastes produced by this activity have become an environmental concern since their improper disposal may contaminate soils and waters (Kominko et al, 2017). Production systems that promote the incorporation of organic residues, either from plants or animals into the soil, contribute to increase the stocks of organic matter (OM) in the soil (Endale et al, 2010), enhance microbial activity (Ashworth et al, 2017), reduce soil losses caused by erosion, contributing to an improvement of soil physicochemical attributes (Mosaddeghi et al, 2009) In this regard, studies report the effective application of poultry litter to increase macronutrient contents in soil (Daronch et al, 2017) and stocks of organic matter (Adeli et al, 2009), enhance the microbiological activity and the pH of the solution in the soil (Pinto et al, 2012), as well as to improve water retention and infiltration in soil (Veum et al, 2014). It is very difficult to estimate an indicator of soil quality, because it can vary according to the type of soil and soil management, the climate and other specificities of each region
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