Revista Brasileira de Milho e Sorgo (Dec 2007)
CROP YIELD AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF AN OXISOL AFFECTED BY THE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Abstract
Soil management comprises a set of practices to conserve the soil’s physical, chemical and biological characteristics by offering good conditions to sowing, germination and plant growth. The objectives were to determine the crop yield and change of the Oxisol physical properties under different soil management systems. The study was carried out at Experimental Station of UNESP - Ilha Solteira campus. The experimental design was entirely randomized, with three repetitions and three treatments: conventional tillage; chisel plowing + leveling disk and no tillage system. The experiment was installed in 1992 and the present study is related to period of 1996 to 1998. The work began in the agricultural year 1996/97 with corn and common bean followed by soybean and black oat in 1998. The following were evaluated: soil macroporosity, soil microporosity, total porosity, soil density in three depths and crop yield under different treatments. The soil management systems have change the physical characteristics into the depth and seasons. The alterations in the soil physical characteristics caused by soil management demonstrated relation with the crop yield, which have been better in the no tillage, except for the corn, in 1996, when it was obtained the smallest yield.
