Soil usage time under pastures and soil macropores volume in Central Amazon

Abstract

Soil quality under usage through time, and within agroecosystems, is an important aspect in order to improve soil usage sustainability in tropical regions. In this scenario, quantifying the effects of time of usage in pastures under the different soil components (macropores) is important to determine the management planning and reclamation most adequate for such areas. The objective of this study was to evaluate the time effect in pastures (4, 5 and 8 years) on macropore volume after ten years of abandonment and nine of reclamation through Capoeira and agroecosystems. Macropore volume was measured in three different depths (0-5; 5-10 and 10-15 cm) in 100 cm3 steel cylinders. Macropore volume dropped significantly with the raise in time usage of the areas as pasture, which in turn makes time usage evident in pastures over macropore volume of soil ≥ 50μ μm, mainly in the first soil layer (0-5 cm), directly affected by animal impact. Therefore, it is suggested that time of soil reclamation should be longer than ten years so that the soil characteristics can be recovered.