Mechanical impedance of clayey and gravelly soils is often needed to interpret experimental results from tillage and other field experiments. Its measurement is difficult with manual and hydraulic penetrometers, which often bend or break in such soils. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of a hand-operated “Stolf” impact penetrometer to measure mechanical impedance (soil resistance). The research was conducted in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA (35o 45’N, 78o 42’W, elevation 75 m). Corn was planted on April […]

In order to evaluate the viability of corn planting in a soil under reduced tillage, a field trial was conducted in Passo Fundo (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), in December, 1988. In the control plots, soil tillage consisted of chisel plowing and disking. In the other five treatments, tillage was done through a conjugated operation (chisel plow with a clod break roller). In the control and in one of the other treatments, the configuration of each line of the planter-fertilizer […]

Gypsum is an amendment used to alleviate subsoil acidity. However, there are doubts about its use for acid soils that previously received applications of lime and fertilizers. There are also doubts on the use of gypsum in the cases of the use of high liming rates or for aluminum tolerant crop varieties. This paper describes a limestone and gypsum experiment conducted from 1987 to 1992 at the Tatui Experimental Station, State of São Paulo, Brazil. The experiment was on a […]

A field experiment, located on a private farm close to Piracicaba, State of São Paulo, Brazil, was conducted on a severely eroded soil (Ultisol-Entisol association), which has been planted with sugar cane for the last 30 years. The objective was to characterize the spatial variability of soil and plant attributes. An area of 50 by 70 m was divided into 10 columns and 14 rows in a grid of 5 m, resulting in 140 sampling points. Soil samples were collected […]

The effects of applying micronutrients, cattle manure, lime and splitting application of NPK fertilizers on the yield and the incidence of witches’ broom disease of cacao caused by Crinipellis perniciosa were determined in two experiments carried out on structured Terra Roxa soil (TR) and Yellow Latosol (LA), in Pará State, from 1988 to 1993, after the slash and burn of the forest. The hybrid (Sca 6 x Be 10) cacao crop was introduced utilizing banana (Musa spp.), as temporary shading, […]

With the objective of defining the typology and distribution of the predominant erosion processes in a “Água da Cachoeira” microwatershed, with 3.700 ha, located in the “Planalto Ocidental Paulista”, a survey, characterization and mapping of erosion was conducted. Areas with sheet erosion, sheet and rill erosion, deep rill and gully erosion, and badlands were delimited through photointerpretation and field work. Four large badlands connected to the drainage net, eight wide gullies with partial vegetation cover and several average gullies which […]

The experiment was carried out on a dystrophic Dark Red Latosol from Ponta Grossa, Paraná State, Brazil, to evaluate the effects of the surface application of lime and gypsum on soil chemical characteristics and soybean response in no-tillage. A randomized complete block design was used, with three replications, in a split-plot experiment. Dolomitic limestone was applied at rates of 0, 2, 4 and 6 t ha-1 (main plots) in July of 1993; gypsum was applied at rates of 0, 4, […]

Basalt rocks are one of the most common parent materials of large areas of soil in southern Brazil. Several major plant nutrients are present in its composition. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of the addition of increased rates of ground basalt rock on the nutrient availability of soil, during three periods of incubation. The rocks tested were a microcrystalline and an olivine-basalt. The rates of basalt rock, corresponding to 0, 5, 10, 25, 50 e […]

The new planting areas of cacao in the Amazon basin of Brazil were established on eutrophic soils, especially structured Purple Earth, and on Yellow Latosol or dystrophic podzolic soils. The nutrient requirements of cacao trees cultivated on these soils were still unknown. The effects of N, P and K on the productivity of cacao were determined in two experiments conducted in the counties of Medicilândia, along the Transamazonian Highway, and Benevides, Pará, Brazil. The cacao crop of the hybrid Sca […]

The potential extractable acidity method by Ca(OAc)2 0.5 mol L-1 is widely used in Brazilian soil analysis laboratories. To define the calibration curve between potential extractable acidity and buffered pH SMP, 102 samples of soils from Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, were analyzed in 1996. The data showed that potential acidity can be estimated by pH SMP buffer suspension (R2 = 0.90**) and that the pH of Ca(OAc)2 0.5 mol L-1 suspension was significantly correlated with the pH SMP.