Influence of different systems of soil use on its structure

Abstract

Soil structure is defined as the ability of the soil mass to disintegrate itself into separations of different shapes and sizes, which can be assessed by the stability of the aggregates. The following work was carried out with the objective of determining the change influence of the agricultural use on the structural stability index (Ie) and its relation with the dispersion factor (Kd) in Red Ferralitic leachate soils (FRL) of the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences (INCA). The soils for this study were subject to different uses, a Forest system, a Fruit trees system and a Crop Various system. The samples were taken at a depth of 0-20 and 20-40 cm. Structural analyzes were performed every two months by the Savinov and the dispersion factor method by dividing the percentage of microaggregated clay between the clay percentage of the mechanical analysis multiplied by 100. The mean and the confidence interval of the means were determined for all variables evaluated. The comparison was performed by analyzing the confidence intervals (± Z1.Esx) for a significance of 0,05. The results showed that the Forest system presented the best coefficients and the highest index stability structure and the lowest value as factor the dispersion regards of the clay in the soil, but this is not the case in the Fruit trees and Crop Various systems where these indicators showed how intensive exploitation influences in soil degradation.