ABSTRACT Quantification of soil properties is essential for better understanding of the environment and better soil management. The conventional techniques of laboratory analysis are sometimes costly and detrimental to the environment. Thus, development of new techniques for soil analysis that do not generate residues, such as spectroscopy, is increasingly necessary as a viable way to estimate a wide range of soil properties. The objective of this study was to predict the levels of organic carbon (OC), clay, and extractable phosphorus […]

ABSTRACT: Soil water retention and availability are important properties for agricultural production, which can be measured directly or estimated by pedotransfer functions. Some studies on this topic were carried out in Santa Catarina, Brazil. To improve the estimates, it is necessary to evaluate other properties, to analyze more soil types, as well as to use other analysis techniques such as artificial neural networks and regression trees. Thus, the objective of the study was to estimate the field capacity (FC), permanent […]

ABSTRACT: High copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) contents in soil can cause phytotoxicity to plants and contaminate surface and groundwater, with negative effects on agriculture and the environment. Functionalized charcoal (OCh) has high cation exchange capacity (CEC) and the ability to adsorb Cu and Zn and control their availability in the soil and water. An adsorption study at two pH levels was carried out to evaluate increasing Cu and Zn sorption capacity provided by the functionalization process of a charcoal. […]

ABSTRACT: Ruzigrass (Urochola ruziziensis) has a large capacity to take up K from the soil, including non-exchangeable forms, and can play an important role in nutrient cycling in integrated production systems. However, K transport to roots of brachiarias is not well known, nor the nutrient dynamics in the rhizosphere, where a concentration gradient may be established towards the non-rhizospheric soil, creating a favorable environment for the release of non-exchangeable K. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of ruzigrass on […]

ABSTRACT: Records of changes in the phytosociological structure of vegetation can be observed more clearly in soils that have more significant accumulation of organic matter, like those occurring in high-mountain environments. The aim of this study was to characterize soils formed in high-mountain environments in the Itatiaia National Park (INP), state of Rio de Janeiro, southeastern Brazil, and to discuss the potential of preserved phytoliths as markers of vegetative history and environmental factors. Four profiles were selected, which were morphologically […]

ABSTRACT: Increasingly, applications of machine learning techniques for digital soil mapping (DSM) are being used for different soil mapping purposes. Considering the variety of models available, it is important to know their performance in relation to soil data and environmental variables involved in soil mapping. This paper investigated the performance of eight machine learning algorithms for soil mapping in a tropical mountainous area of an official rural settlement in the Zona da Mata region in Brazil. Morphometric maps generated from […]

ABSTRACT: The thermal wave amplitude method is used to determine soil thermal diffusivity in situ for a sandy soil in Mexico (Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz). Soil diurnal temperature fluctuations were measured from depths of 0.05 to 0.65 m, in 0.01 m increments, during the months of April and August. Five mean diffusivity values were obtained experimentally, corresponding to the different depths combination. The soil thermal diffusivity ranged between 2.26 × 10−7 and 8.71 × 10−7 m2 s−1. The diffusivity values obtained are […]

ABSTRACT: The soil water retention curve is one of the main instruments to assess the soil physical quality and to improve soil management. Traditionally, the equipment most used in the laboratory to determine the retention curve has been Haines funnels and Richards chambers. An important factor to which little attention has been given in the use of these equipaments is the height of the undisturbed soil sample. This work proposes to evaluate the influence of different heights of undisturbed samples […]

ABSTRACT: Planning sustainable use of land resources requires reliable information about spatial distribution of soil physical and chemical properties related to environmental processes and ecosystemic functions. In this context, cation exchange capacity (CEC) is a fundamental soil quality indicator; however, it takes money and time to obtain this data. Although many studies have been conducted to spatially quantify soil properties on various scales and in different environments, not much is known about interactions between soil properties and environmental covariates in […]

ABSTRACT Chemical speciation of the soil solution is an important tool to identify Al species related to phytotoxicity. In some Brazilian acid soils, the Al extractable by the KCl 1.0 mol L -1 solution (Al-KCl) exceeds 10 cmol c kg -1 and even then, in some situations, it does not cause toxicity to the plants. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between these high concentrations of Al-KCl found in some Brazilian acid soils and the activity of the different […]