Volume 38, Number 2, 2014

Located in the Midwest of the State of Minas Gerais, a region called Quadrilátero Ferrífero covers an area of approximately 7,000 km2. Since the seventeenth century, it is known as gold- and iron-producing province, and the geological context is therefore one of the best-studied of Brazil. The regional topography is very rugged, with mostly poorly developed pedogenesis, especially Cambissolos Háplicos, Neossolos Litólicos and Neossolos Regolíticos. In a smaller proportion and on colluvial ramps (hilly relief), very Fe-rich Latossolos Vermelhos occur, […]

Considering that information from soil reflectance spectra is underutilized in soil classification, this paper aimed to evaluate the relationship of soil physical, chemical properties and their spectra, to identify spectral patterns for soil classes, evaluate the use of numerical classification of profiles combined with spectral data for soil classification. We studied 20 soil profiles from the municipality of Piracicaba, State of São Paulo, Brazil, which were morphologically described and classified up to the 3rd category level of the Brazilian Soil […]

Soil sampling is one of the most important stages in soil surveys. However, in conventional soil surveys, sampling schemes have proven to be inadequate for digital soil mapping because they may affect the results obtained and, in addition, they do not allow statistical estimations to be performed. This study attempts to evaluate the conditioned Latin Hypercube Sampling (cLHS) method with four environmental covariates (elevation, slope, curvature and land cover/land use map), in comparison to random sampling, in allocating 100 sample […]

The use of geostatistical techniques allows detection of the existence of dependence and the spatial distribution of soil properties, thus constituting an important tool in the analysis and detailed description of the behavior of soil physical properties. The aim of the present study was to use geostatistics in assessment of physical properties in a Latossolo (Oxisol) dystrophic under native forest and pasture in the Amazon region of Manicore. Grids with of 70 x 70 m were established in native forest […]

The sugarcane industry, a strategic crop in Brazil, requires technological improvements in production efficiency to increase the crop energy balance. Among the various currently studied alternatives, inoculation with diazotrophic bacteria proved to be a technology with great potential. In this context, the efficiency of a mixture of bacterial inoculant was evaluated with regard to the agronomic performance and N nutrition of sugarcane. The experiment was carried out on an experimental field of Embrapa Agrobiologia, in Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, using […]

Management systems involving crop rotation, ground cover species and reduced soil tillage can improve the soil physical and biological properties and reduce degradation. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the effect of various crops grown during the sugarcane fallow period on the production of glomalin and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in two Latosols, as well as their influence on soil aggregation. The experiment was conducted on an eutroferric Red Latosol with high-clay texture (680 g clay kg-1) and […]

The community composition and diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can be affected by several factors, including the climate, soil biota and host plants. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of Sesbania virgata (SV) revegetation in pure and intercropped with plantation Eucalyptus camaldulensis (EC) and Acacia mangium (AM), in the composition and diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and the amount glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) in an area damaged by clay extraction. The experimental design was a randomized block […]

In the south-central region of Brazil, there is a trend toward reducing the sugarcane inter-harvest period and increasing traffic of heavy harvesting machinery on soil with high water content, which may intensify the compaction process. In this study, we assessed the structural changes of a distroferric Red Latosol (Oxisol) by monitoring soil water content as a function of the Least Limiting Water Range (LLWR) and quantified its effects on the crop yield and industrial quality of the first ratoon crop […]

The concept of soil quality is currently the subject of great discussion due to the interaction of soil with the environment (soil-plant-atmosphere) and practices of human intervention. However, concepts of soil quality relate quality to agricultural productivity, but assessment of soil quality in an agronomic context may be different from its assessment in natural areas. The aim of this study was to assess physical quality indices, the S index, soil aeration capacity (ACt/Pt), and water storage capacity (FC/Pt) of the […]

Modeling of water movement in non-saturated soil usually requires a large number of parameters and variables, such as initial soil water content, saturated water content and saturated hydraulic conductivity, which can be assessed relatively easily. Dimensional flow of water in the soil is usually modeled by a nonlinear partial differential equation, known as the Richards equation. Since this equation cannot be solved analytically in certain cases, one way to approach its solution is by numerical algorithms. The success of numerical […]