Definition of specific management areas based on soil physical and chemical properties and morphometric variables of the crop

Abstract

With the purpose of delimiting specific management areas based on physical and chemical properties of a lacustrine soil and morphometric variables of the banana crop (Musa AAA), a study was carried out in a banana plantation in Aragua state, Venezuela, in eight production lots corresponding to 43 ha. A systematic sampling with 150 x 150 m grids was applied, resulting in 70 sampling points, in which were determined: percentages of sand, silt, clay and coarse fragments; pH; electric conductivity; organic carbon; phosphorus, calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, manganese, zinc and copper available; calcium carbonate, total porosity, macropores, micropores, bulk density, saturated hydraulic conductivity and rupture modulus. In the plants were determined: stem circumference at 1 m, height, number of hands per bunch, fresh weight of total roots, functional and nonfunctional roots. Descriptive, multivariate statistics and geostatistical were applied to determine the spatial variability of the variables, as well as the neurofuzzy model FKCN. This allowed grouping the soils into five specific management zones for physical properties and four zones for chemical properties. The highest vigor and the lowest production of total roots were obtained in soils with similar proportions of particles size fractions, and with the lowest available phosphorus and calcium contents, but with the highest levels of available potassium, magnesium and iron. The lowest vigor and the highest total root production were evidenced in the heaviest soils and in those with a predominance of coarse fragments.