Caracterização e gênese de latossolos amarelos com caráter coeso em brejo de altitude pernambucano

Abstract

Some soils have horizons or subsurface layers that expressly dry out more than other horizons or layers, however, becoming younger, becoming therefore called cohesive or soils with cohesive character. These soils occur in areas of great socioeconomic importance and are widely used in agriculture. However, the cohesive horizon makes it difficult to deepen roots, limiting the absorption of water and nutrients by plants, because it causes alterations in soil matric potential, temperature, and soil resistance to root penetration. The genesis of cohesion is unknown, many hypotheses have emerged to unravel, such as translocation of thin to very fine clays, face-to-face adjustment of the kaolinite flakes, low Fe2O3 contents, amorphous materials acting as cohesive agents and packaging the sand fraction poorly selected. The objective of this study was to characterize Yellow Latosols with a cohesive character in topossequence in the Pernambuco highland, seeking to advance in the understanding of the genesis of this character, evaluating the possible physical, chemical and mineralogical mechanisms that promote the cohesion of horizons and cohesive layers. A property that explains the genesis of cohesion was not observed, but it was perceived that it is more related to physical characteristics than to chemistry, since the Si and Al elements obtained by the acid ammonium oxalate extracts from the experiment were low and the variations In their contents do not justify the manifestation of cohesion.The water retention curves of the soil were not sensitive to distinguish the cohesive horizons from the other horizons. The penetration resistance (in the humidity of 33 and 100 KPa) was the most efficient physical analysis for this distinction. The methodological protocol for selective extraction of Si, Al and Fe in undisturbed samples was satisfactory, whose contents extracted with ammonium acid oxalate were similar to those extracted in the air dried soil samples.