Soil physical quality changes under different management systems after 10 years in Argentinian Humid Pampa

COSTA JOSÉ LUIS; APARICIO VIRGINIA; CERDA, ARTEMI

Solid Earth Discussions

Board

Año: 2014

1869-9537

South American countries with the highest surface of land under no till (NT) are Brazil, Argentina and Chile. In Argentina, 78.5 % of the agricultural land is cropped under NT management. In several experiments have confirmed the improvements in soil aggregation and infiltration achieved by NT in dry land farming areas associated with increases of δb under NT. An increase to δb implies a reduction of the macro and meso porosity which is in contradiction with the increased infiltration which occurs at macro and meso-pores. We hypothesize that the increase in bulk density in NT mainly affects the mesopores. We evaluated the evolution of the soil physical parameters in three management systems in four farmers? fields. We found that: the reduction in total porosity under NT is mainly a product of a reduction in the percentage of mesopores in the soil. In this work, the results indicate a modification of some soil physical parameters (porosity, near-saturated hydraulic conductivity, soil structure) due to uninterrupted agricultural production but the management system did not affect the yields of crop.