Physical soil quality in the area of sugarcane with traffic control

Abstract

By adopting mechanical harvesting systems for sugarcane crop management, concerns associated to soil compaction and its harmful effects on soil physical properties arises, which affects crop productivity. A recent management technique for agricultural mechanization known as traffic control is recognized as an alternative for cane sugar plantation, since it separates the traffic areas from those devoted to plant growth, concentrating the tires passage on delimited strips, generating substantial reduction on soil compaction mainly when it is associated to combined double spacing plantation. The present work aims to study the changes on soil physical properties as well as on the development of sugarcane growth in areas with and without traffic control and planted with single and combined double spacing. The work will be carried on two areas of different soil textures classes, i.e., clay and sandy soils, located in the Usina Santa Fé, at the city of Nova Europa-SP. One experiment will be carried on each soil class by adopting a randomized block design with three treatments, four replications, and plots with dimensions of 30 m x 50 m. The employed treatments are T1: Sugarcane planted with single spacing and harvested by automatic tractor guidance, T2: Sugarcane planted with single spacing and harvested without automatic tractor guidance and T3: Sugarcane planted with combined double spacing and harvested with automatic tractor guidance. Furthermore, a native forest area set on a similar soil to the experimental site will be used as a control treatment. At the end of the experiment, it is expected the obtained results to support the recommendation of traffic control in areas of sugarcane planted with double spacing as an alternative to mitigate the problems related to soil compaction. (AU)