ABSTRACT Different cultivation methods directly affect the quality of medicinal materials, to gain insights into the effects of different type of mulching on the quality of Notopterygium franchetii root medicinal materials, farmland experiments were conducted in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. We subjected two-year-old Notopterygium franchetii seedling to five mulching treatments: no mulching (CK, control), coarse sand mulching (CM), grassy mulching (GM), stalk mulching (SM), and plastic mulching (PM). Following these treatments, we determined the moisture content, pH, NPK contents, and enzymeatic […]

This study evaluated the kinetics of urease hydrolysis in two different Brazilian soils (Rhodic Oxisols): a typic alumino-ferric Red Latossol and a typic distrophic Red Latosol. The trials were carried out to study the effects of air drying, soil sampling, storage conditions and temperature, pH, time of incubation, and substrate concentration on the urease activity. Results showed that best conditions for soil sample storage after air-drying for a 7-day period were at room temperature or at a temperature of 5 ºC. […]

The knowledge of the dynamics of the organic N compound mineralization in the soil is important for the efficient use of N in agricultural production systems. With the objective of evaluating the protease activity and its relations to the contents of different N forms in a Dark Red Latosol cultivated with orange trees, soil samples were collected from two depths (0-10 and 10-20 cm) under top projection and between rows in the months of November and December 1998 and February and […]

The constant use of fertilizers that does not contain sulfur, in addition to low organic matter content of some soils, may result in sulfur limitation to crops. Due to the high mobility of the sulfate ion in many soils, it is important to know the residual effect of the phosphogypsum when added to the soil as S source, in order to estimate its application frequency. Experiments were performed under field conditions, in two years, in order to evaluate the effect […]

This study was carried out using soil samples collected from a Podzol grown with orange trees, at Estação Experimental de Umbaúba, Umbaúba-SE (CPATC-EMBRAPA), to evaluate the acid and alkaline phosphatases activities from a coastal tableland soil submitted to different base saturation values (32, 45, 68 and 76.6%) and the relationships between soil characteristics and these activities. Positive responses to the increment of base saturation were observed for pH, organic matter content, available phosphorus and acid and alkaline phosphatases activities, in […]