Propriedades de retenção e condução de água em solos sob condições de campo e em forma de agregados, submetidos aos plantios convencional e direto

Abstract

It has been unquestionable the importance of the studies and researches that seek for the understanding of the physical and hydraulic properties of the soil and that these studies and researches try to correlate them with the soil physical attributes. This work presents the use of the methodology presented in Leeds-Harrison et al. (1994), developed for the determination of the saturated hydraulic conductivity at the level of aggregates of the soil and the use of Permeâmetro of Guelph for measures of that property in field.. In this work the aggregates of the soil were investigated submitted to systems conventional tillage and direct tillage. To correlate the hydraulic conductivity of the soil with its retention properties, the retention curves and distribution of pores of the aggregate near the saturation condition they were done through a system based on the idea of a funnel of porous plate or funnel of Haines. Measures of the bulk density, total porosity, macroporosity and microporosity of the investigated aggregates were also accomplished. The obtained results showed that the conventional tillage presented larger value of the saturated hydraulic conductivity on average compared with the direct tillage, so much in field conditions as in the form of aggregates. The direct tillage presented a capacity of larger retention compared to the conventional tillage. This can be due to the largest amount of microporous found in this tillage type. The pores distribution curves shows on average a larger amount of smaller pores in the aggregates of the direct tillage, what might have determined its smallest value of hydraulic conductivity in relation to the conventional tillage. The tillage type can propitiate the formation of pores with larger diameters, in which, firstly, allow larger values of saturated hydraulic conductivity. However, due to the no structures imposed to the soil samples, nothing can be affirmed in regard to the continuity of these types of pores.