Indicadores de qualidade estrutural e trafegabilidade de latossolos e argissolos vermelhos. / Indicators of structural quality and trafficability of hapludox and hapludalf.

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2002

RESUMO

The soil, besides being one of the basic resources of the natural and agricultural ecosystems, has been considered a finite, fragile and no renewable resource. For this reason the maintenance of its quality has been acquiring great relevance in the last decades. Several soil physical quality indicators have been used with the intention of developing guides of workability and trafficability that allow to define the more appropriate management practices and the most opportune moment for applying them in view to conserve the soil quality. However, it is scarce the information for soils developed under the influence of tropical climates. In this context, the general objective of this research was to evaluate, quantitatively, several indicators of soil physical quality that are directly and indirectly related to the productivity of the cultures, and to develop pedotransfer functions to make possible to estimate those indicators using easily measurable soil attributes for Hapludox and Hapludalf. The specific objectives were: i) to evaluate the workability indicators "tensile strength of the aggregates" and "friability" and, to determine the influence of the soil intrinsic properties on those indicators; ii) to quantify the trafficability indicators "susceptibility to compaction", "preconsolidation pressure" and "compressibility", and to determine the influence of soil water content, organic matter, texture, and structure on those indicators; iii) to evaluate the structural quality indicator "least limiting water range" and the trafficability indicator "preconsolidation pressure", to relate them, and to determine values of critical pressures that can be applied to the soil without inducing restrictive conditions to plant growth and additional soil compaction; and iv) to develop pedotransfer functions to estimate the measured indicators using easily measurable soil attributes. The results related the objective i) indicated that soil tensile strength was positively related to clay+silt content and organic matter, and that poorly crystalline iron oxides were the constituent of clay+silt fractions that most contributed to soil tensile strength. Results also indicated that the soils were highly friable, with the crystalline iron forms being positively related to soil friability. The results related to the objective ii) showed that the compression index was significantly related to soil texture and soil bulk density. The preconsolidation pressure was significantly related to soil water content, soil texture (clay content), and bulk density. The soil compressibility was related to bulk density. The results related to the objective iii) showed that least limiting water range and preconsolidation pressure were related to soil bulk density and soil water content. The least limiting water range was used to obtain the soil critic bulk density for the plants growth, which in turn was used to quantify the soil critical pressures. The soil critical pressure for plant development was negative and linearly related to the increase of water content. Pedotransfer functions that make possible to estimate the evaluated indicators from easily measurable soil attributes were generated in answer to the objective iv).

ASSUNTO(S)

resistência dos solos compactação dos solos compacting of ground latossolo compressibility of ground physics of the ground resistance of ground estrutura do solo podzólico compressibilidade dos solos física do solo structure of the ground

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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