Atributos físicos, químicos e biológicos da qualidade do solo sob diferentes espécies de gramíneas

Abstract

The soil quality is a factor that is directly related to the sustainability of agricultural production, but improper soil management practices can compromise it. As an alternative for reversing this situation, the use of cover crops through conservationist management systems has been proposed. In this work we evaluated soil edaphic respiration in livestock farming integration system (LFIS) and the changes promoted by cover crops in the microbial biomass present in it using indicators of soil quality by the respirometry method. The design was completely randomized in a 3x6 factorial scheme and the multivariate principal component analysis (PCA) according to MANOVA. The determination of edaphic respiration was based on the respirometry technique and with the results it was found that the basal respiration of the soil was significant in the nine evaluation periods demonstrating the importance of the grass coverings on this edaphic respiration. derived from the biological activity of microorganisms, which is directly related to the amount of organic carbon in the soil. It is concluded that the use of cover crops contributed to soil organic matter production and consequent higher microbial respiratory activity.