SPATIAL VARIABILITY OF PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES IN AREAS CULTIVATED WITH PAPAYA IN DIFFERENT SOIL TILLAGE - DOI: 10.13083/1414-3984.v22n02a06

Abstract

The objective of this work was to study the spatial variability of soil physical attributes in areas cultivated with papaya subject to different soil tillage, using the techniques of classical statistics and geostatistics. The experiment was carried in 2013 in an orchard of papaya Tainung 01, located in Linhares - ES, on a Ultisol Cohesive, plan relief. The preparation of the soil for transplanting was performed in two adjacent areas of approximately 2 ha each, in one of the areas two passes of a harrow disk were used and in the other area treatment consisted of two passes of a chisel plow. The physical attributes of the soil studied 90 days after transplanting were soil bulk density (DS), macroporosity (Macro) and microporosity (Micro), as well as the water content in the soil in the two preparations and two different depth ranges. To make up the experimental design 100 plants were randomly selected. The soil physical properties showed spatial variability due to strong dependence for all variables, tillage and soil depth. The semi-varigram fit to the spherical and exponential model for the physical attributes analyzed. An increase in the reach (A0) was generally observed with increasing depth in both types of tillage, except when the water content in soil showed a decrease in values to roughly 23 %, for both harrowing and plowing.