Abstract

BERNAL, Napoleón et al. Effect of four tillage methods on the physical properties and loss of soil in the potato-grass rotation in hillside areas of a high Andean region in Colombia . Acta Agron. [online]. 2008, vol.57, n.1, pp.35-42. ISSN 0120-2812.

This study evaluated the loss and the changes in the soil physical properties, and the production of yellow potato Solanum phureja, as a result of four tillage systems (Human traction, THT; Animal traction, ATT; Mechanical, MT; and Mechanical combined, CMT) in Santa Lucia, Tuluá municipality, high andean region of Colombia to 2.870 masl. Treatments were evaluated using a completely randomized blocks desing with three replicates, and the data examined by means of a matrix of change for each physical property. Soil loss was determined by the ditch of runoff. Mechanical traction affected the soil physical properties negatively, that became evident in the increment of losses with the runoff. The bigger loss of soil was correlated with MT use and it diminished to the 50 % with HTT: (MT 6.12 tha^-1 year^-1; CMT 5.0 tha^-1 year^-1; ATT 3.7 tha^-1 year^-1 and HTT 2.73 tha^-1 year^-1). ATT generated the bigger cost-reducing and environmental retribution, because his production (13 tha^-1) was major than the average obtained in the treatments (12.4 tha^-1) and the lost one belonging to ground was minor than the generated for MT and CMT.

Keywords : Tillage methods; erosion; grasses-yellow-potato Solanum phureja rotation; Hillsides soils; Soil loss; Soil physical properties; High Andean region.

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