Volume 35, Number 6, 2011

More productive potato cultivars possibly require larger quantities of micronutrients, but in Brazil there is little information on extraction and exportation of micronutrients by the commonly used potato cultivars. The objective of this study was to evaluate extraction and exportation of micronutrients by the potato cultivars Ágata, Asterix, Atlantic, Markies, and Mondial. The experiment was conducted in Itaí, São Paulo State, Brazil, in the 2008 winter growing season on an Oxisol. Plots consisted of the five potato cultivars and subplots […]

Poultry litter is an organic fertilizer with good agronomic characteristics, which serves well as conditioner of soil physical properties. In this sense, the objective of this study was to verify changes in soil properties in no-tillage systems with poultry litter. The study was conducted on a sandy loam Oxisol under continuous no-tillage in the last years, with rotation of mainly soybean, corn, cotton, and millet, with evaluations in three layers (0-10, 10-20, 20-30 cm), in three replications. The treatments consisted […]

DRIS, an Diagnosis and Recommendation Integrated System, is a tool to evaluate the nutritional status of plants. Different DRIS formulas have been proposed to improve the efficiency of the crop nutrition diagnoses. The objective of this study was to compare the nutritional diagnosis of the formulas of Beaufils (1973), of Jones (1981) and of Elwali and Gascho (1984), based on the degree of agreement in commercial orchards of Theobrama grandiflorum trees. Leaf samples of 5 to 18 year-old cupuaçu trees […]

In Brazil, plant-available micronutrients in the soil can be determined by several chemical extractants, the most common of which are dilute acid and chelating solutions. The purpose of this study was to assess the extractants 0.1 mol L-1 HCl, Mehlich-1, Mehlich-3 and DTPA for analysis of the micronutrients Cu, Zn, Fe, and Mn in soils from the state of Paraná. In samples from 12 soils (0-20 cm layer), wheat was planted (Triticum aestivum), grown for 42 days after emergence, and […]

Understanding and quantifying the impact of land use and soil management on soil organic carbon (SOC) levels and physical properties is essential for the development of a sustainable agriculture. The purpose of this study was to evaluate some physical properties and SOC of an Oxisol in the Northwest of the state of Paraná, under different use and soil management systems, i.e., under native forest, pasture, cassava, and sugarcane. Disturbed soil samples were collected for particle size, particle density, proctor and […]

Soil compaction at high intensity degrees is a hardly reversible process in the no-till system (NT), mainly in clayey soils. Generally, its occurrence in croplands is often irregular and restricted to areas with a previous history of pressures associated to intensive traffic of agricultural machineries. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in soil physical properties of a red Oxisol with clayey texture (450 g kg-1) and soybean yield, caused by two site-specific chisels and conventional (random) chisel […]

Knowledge of intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) relationships of rainfall events is extremely important to determine the dimensions of surface drainage structures and soil erosion control. The purpose of this study was to obtain IDF equations of 13 rain gauge stations in the state of Santa Catarina in Brazil: Chapecó, Urussanga, Campos Novos, Florianópolis, Lages, Caçador, Itajaí, Itá, Ponte Serrada, Porto União, Videira, Laguna and São Joaquim. The daily rainfall data charts of each station were digitized and then the annual maximum rainfall […]

Particle size distribution (PSD) in the soil profile is strongly related to erosion, deposition, and physical and chemical processes. Water cycling and plant growth are also affected by PSD. Material sedimented upstream of the dam constructions formed large areas of deposited farmland (DF) soils on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP), which has been the site of the most severe soil erosion in the world. Two DFs without tillage on the CLP were chosen to study the combined effect of erosion […]

Although a number of studies related to environmental issues address air pollution, the increased use of biotechnology and mechanical harvesting of sugar cane, less attention has been paid to the negative environmental impacts caused by laminar erosion. This study aimed to determine the levels of organic matter (OM) and nutrients (P, K, Ca and Mg) in sediment and runoff water from interrill erosion from different sugarcane harvest systems (green and burnt cane), on a loamy Dystrophic Red Latosol (Oxisol). The […]

As conflicts related to the water use in Brazil are increasing, the implementation of policies that can mitigate these problems has become crucial. In this context, the concept of Payment for Environmental Services (PES) has been widely accepted and applied around the world and also in Brazil. The municipality of Extrema, in the State of Minas Gerais, was the first in Brazil to implement a PES program, known as “Conservador das Águas”. This study aimed to evaluate soil losses in […]