Erosion has been recognized as the main cause of soil degradation and is accelerated by human intervention in watersheds, causing losses to the agricultural sector and damaging the environment. To estimate the impacts caused by land use or climate changes on hydrosedimentological processes, physically-based distributed models have been shown to be quite effective. In this study, the SWAT model was calibrated and validated for two subwatersheds of the Japaratuba Mirim river watershed, one located upstream of the Fazenda Pão de […]

The occupation and territorial dispersion of the first settlers in South America, especially in Brazil, are still little known and require continuous interdisciplinary studies involving anthropology, archeology, and soil science. Under natural limestone shelters, pre-Columbian populations lived for thousands of years, introducing and removing materials of different nature and from different origins, resulting in the development of very peculiar anthropogenic soils, which have been little investigated so far. To deepen the knowledge on this type of soil, we evaluated the […]

Digital soil mapping allows predicting patterns of soil classes on the basis of well-known reference areas and of data mining techniques to model soil-landscape relationships. The purpose of this study was to (1) generate a digital pedological map using data mining techniques to associate geomorphometric and geology variables with soil classes of traditional soil maps in reference areas and (2) validate these maps by different field techniques. The mapping was carried out using the 1:50.000 Botucatu sheet (SF-22-Z-B-VI-3), and 1:50.000 […]

Large areas of Plinthosols with ferruginous materials such as plinthite and/or petroplinthite are fairly common in the Brazilian Amazon basin. This work was carried out to investigate the chemical behavior, mineralogical composition and weathering stage of four representative soil profiles with plinthite and petroplinthite, in Iranduba, AM (Central Amazon). Three well-drained soil profiles at high elevations were studied (P1, Plinthic Vetic Ferralsol; P2 and P3, Vetic Endopetric Plinthosol) and a contrasting poorly drained soil (P4 Haplic Plinthosol), located at low […]

Efficient analytical methods for the quantification of plant-available Zn contained in mineral fertilizers and industrial by-products are fundamental for the control and marketing of these inputs. In this sense, there are some doubts on the part of the scientific community as well as of the fertilizer production sector, whether the extractor requested by the government (Normative Instruction No. 28, called 2nd extractor), which is citric acid 2 % (2 % CA) (Brasil, 2007b), is effective in predicting the plant availability […]

Among the production factors, adequate fertilization is an important tool to raise the productivity of pastoral systems and consequently increase the share of Brazil in the supply chain of primary agricultural products at the global level. The objective of this study was to evaluate the interaction of nitrogen and sulfur fertilization in BRACHIARIA DECUMBENS: Stapf. The experiment in pots with Dystrophic Oxisol was evaluated in a completely randomized design with four replications in a 5 x 3 factorial arrangement, involving […]

Knowledge about the variability of soil physical properties is fundamental for the monitoring of soil quality for being directly related to the sustainability of agricultural production. This study aimed to: a) assess and identify structures of spatial dependence by the construction of semi-variograms, for a Red-Yellow Latosol (Oxisol) under coffee, b) characterize the spatial distributions of the physical properties using ordinary kriging, and c) identify the layer with greatest physical impediment. The experiment was conducted on an experimental farm of […]

Humic substances (HS) are the main pool of total soil organic carbon (TOC). They are partitioned in different fractions according to its solubility in alkali or acid medium, which can be related to soil type and management. This work aimed to compare HS partitioning in Brazilian soils according to soil depth, soil type, biome, and land uses. In a literature review of theses, dissertations, journal articles, and abstracts in proceedings, quantitative data on TOC partitioning in humic acids (HA), fulvic […]

Several advances have been made in the field of diffuse spectroradiometry in the last decades. In agriculture, the search for quantification methods of physical and chemical properties of the production environment, based on soil reflectance, has been constantly researched. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility of estimating the silt, sand, clay, sum of bases, total iron and organic matter content in soil samples based on the reflected energy. The samples were collected in a 2500 ha […]

Considering the importance of knowledge of the spatial distribution of soil properties, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the spatial variability of physical properties in a Cambisolunder different land uses in the southern Amazon region. The study was conducted on three farms with cassava, sugarcane, and agroforestry, in the region of Humaitá, in the south of the State of Amazonas. In these areas, 70 x 70 m grids were established, with a regular spacing of 10 x 10 […]