SOIL DENSITY AND MOISTURE IN AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS

Abstract

Agroforestry systems (AFSs) are integrated systems consisting of agricultural and forest species, which seek to maintain natural soil conditions. In this way, the work aimed to evaluate and compare two soil physical attributes, density and humidity, in different agroforestry systems. The soil samples were collected using the volumetric ring method, considering the depth of 0-5 cm in the soil for the determination of the density and humidity. The analyzes were carried out in the nursery area of the Federal University of the West of Pará. The experimental design was completely randomized with six treatments and five replicates. The data were submitted to the normality test, based on the Kruskal Wallis non-parametric test for density, due to non-normality of the data, and the Tukey test for the moisture data. The density found in the AFSs studied ranged from 0.7 to 1.2 g.cm-³, thus being considered as soils under normal conditions, with no compaction levels. Among the systems studied, AFS 4 had a higher density level and lower moisture content and AFS 3 presented better conditions with higher moisture value and lower density. The pre-planting history of the systems, such as cattle breeding, and the number of species present in each arrangement, apparently did not influence the edaphic factors evaluated.KEYWORDS: Agroforestry, Arrangement, Compression.