0000000000520392
AUTHOR
J. L. Costa
Soil physical quality changes under different management systems after 10 years in the Argentine humid pampa
Abstract. South American countries with the highest surface of land under no-tillage (NT) management are Brazil, Argentina and Chile. In Argentina, 78.5% of the agricultural land is cropped under NT management. Several experiments have confirmed the improvements in soil aggregation and infiltration achieved by NT management in dry-land farming areas associated with increases of bulk density (δb) under NT management. An increase in bulk density implies a reduction of the macro and mesoporosity that is in contradiction with the increased infiltration that occurs at macro and mesopores. We hypothesize that the increase of bulk density in NT management mainly affects the mesopores. We evaluated…
Soil physical quality changes under different management systems after 10 years in Argentinian Humid Pampa
Abstract. The Argentinian Humid Pampa extends over about 60 million ha, 90% of which are agricultural lands. The southeast of the Buenos Aires Province is part of the Humid Pampa (1 206 162 ha). The main crops are wheat, sunflower, corn and soybean. The management systems used in the area are: moldboard plow (MP), chisel plow (CP) and no-till (NT). Excessive soil cultivation under MP causes decreases in the soil organic carbon content (SOC). Adopting NT may reduce the effects of intensive agriculture, through the maintenance and accumulation of SOC. However, the soil compaction under NT causes degradation of the soil structure, reduces the soil water availability and reduces the soil hydrau…