Maintaining or improving soil quality is crucial for agricultural productivity. Despite being widely used for sugarcane cultivation, Vertisols on the north coast of Villa Clara Province, Cuba, present significant limitations due to poor physical properties such as extreme plasticity. The study aims to evaluate soil quality in Vertisols under tropical conditions by applying different soil treatments and employing multivariate analyses, with the objective of identifying key soil quality indicators relevant to sugarcane production in the North Coast of Cuba. For the selection of soil quality indicators, four field experiments were conducted using organic fertilisers (sugarcane filter cake, compost) and natural minerals (dolomite, zeolite). Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) was used in all experiments. Soil properties were determined, such as the amount of water-stable aggregates, permeability, plastic limit, pH in water, pH in KCl, organic matter, P2O5 and K2O. The sugarcane yield components, such as cane yield (t ha-1) and sucrose yield (t ha-1), were evaluated. Principal components analysis (PCA) and simple regression analysis were also performed. For statistical processing, the package SPSS ver 13.0 and STATGRAPHICS 5.1 on Windows XP were used. Both organic matter and soil structure (water-stable aggregates, permeability) were closely related to cane yield, with r values of 0.70 to 0.96. PCA of the impact of different levels of sugarcane filter cake on soil properties and cane yield resulted in three components, representing 93.8% of the total variance. In this experiment, the correlation matrix with the application of levels of dolomite and their combinations with organic fertilisers shows that physical properties have over 80% significant correlations with other variables evaluated. Zeolite, especially when combined with organic amendments, significantly improved soil structure and aggregation, making it a reliable soil quality indicator treatment for Vertisols under sugarcane. The properties with the best responses to treatments over time were permeability, water-stable aggregates, structure factor, and organic matter; therefore, they can be considered as soil quality indicators for the studied Vertisols.
Author(s) Details
Pedro Cairo Cairo
Universidad de Atacama, Centro Regional de Investigación y Desarrollo
Sustentable de Atacama (CRIDESAT), Copiapó-1532000, Chile.
Bladimir Diaz Martin
Universidad de Atacama, Centro Regional de Investigación y Desarrollo
Sustentable de Atacama (CRIDESAT), Copiapó-1532000, Chile.
Please see the book here :- https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/asti/v5/6375
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