The growing interest in the production of organic foods has intensified the demand for fertilizers with suitable characteristics to supply this production system. However, the quality of commercial organic fertilizers is, in some cases, doubtful due to the lack of analytical methodology to evaluate the products. Our study proposes a methodology based on the evaluation of the humification degree obtained by quantification of organic free radicals (OFR), which are naturally present in organic matter and can be detected by electronic […]

The accumulation and stability of soil organic matter are related to slope steepness. The relationships between steepness and the humification degree of humic acids, the charcoal fragment content and its radiocarbon age were quantitatively evaluated. Four Latosols (Oxisols) of the summit, shoulder, back slope and back/foot slope of a toposequence under pasture in a cratonic area in the southern Minas Gerais state, southwest Brazil, were used. The parent material of the Latosols was gneiss of the Precambrian complex, with an […]

This field study had the following objectives: to determine the most appropriate micronutrient extractor to evaluate manganese bioavailability in soils under no-tillage; to evaluate the interaction of soil manganese with humic acids in soils under no-tillage with and without manganese deficiency through electronic paramagnetic resonance (EPR); and to evaluate manganese fractions (exchangeable, organic, oxides and residual) after manganese addition in soils under no-tillage with and without previous manganese deficiency for soybean. Four sites (I to IV) were selected to study […]