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ARS Home » Midwest Area » West Lafayette, Indiana » National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #122964
Title: TILLAGE IMPACT ON SOIL ENZYME ACTIVITY IN BRAZILIAN CERRADO SOILS

Author
item GREEN, V - PURDUE UNIVERSITY
item Stott, Diane

Submitted to: International Conference on Land Degradation
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/7/2001
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The Brazilian Cerrado region is undergoing rapid conversion from the native savannah type vegetation to agricultural production. It is imperative that these soils be managed with care in order to minimize soil degradation. We examined the effect of tillage on soil enzyme activities. Soil enzyme activities are sensitive to soil management and often show signs of soil degradation well before signs of physical and chemical soil degradation ar evident. We examined beta-glucosidase, arylsulfatase, acid phsphatase, and arylamidase enzyme activities, as well as fluorescein diacetate (FDA) hydrolysis. The tillage systems examined were no-till, disk harrow, and disk plow (disk harrow being an intrmediate tillage between no-till and disk plow). An undisturbed site adjacent to the tillage plots was also examined. In the surface 5 cm, acid phosphatase activity was greater under no-till compared to disk harrow and disk plow. For FDA hydrolysis and beta-glucosidase, no-till was comparable to disk harrow and these tillage regimes had higher activities than disk plow. Differences in enzyme activities between tillage regimes decreased with depth. Our data suggests that at the soil surface, no-till or disk harrow maintains relatively high bilogical activity over the disk plow system. Despite limitations in P, the native site had a slightly higher level of activity than the no-till plots.