Application of penetrometer on quantification of soil compaction

• Grant number: 11/04263-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: August 01, 2011
• End date: July 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Soil Science
• Principal Investigator: Alvaro Pires da Silva
• Grantee: Edison Aparecido Mome Filho
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Modern agriculture has suffered a large impact of mechanization of major crops. The sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is a highly mechanized culture, and because of its remain in the field to be durable, is very susceptible to compaction. The compaction is a process dependent on several intrinsic and extrinsic factors of soil and can be reversed by some techniques such as deep plowing or subsoiling. However, these techniques generate high energy and capital costs and some managements, such as traffic control in agriculture, contribute to decrease the load on the soil and the production costs, since it decreases the time-machine during the crops management. Several devices were developed for the determination of soil attributes in the field, which help to finding the areas to be managed because of compaction. The penetrometer is a widely used technique in the verification of areas with problems of compaction, however, currently there are several penetrometers in the market that have different modes of action. This project aims to verify the performance of two different penetrometers, with different modes of operation (automatic and manual), the correlation between indices obtained (penetration resistance) and other soil variables (density and moisture) and investigate the influence of the organization method of sample and spatial variability of these variables. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

MOME FILHO, Edison Aparecido. Penetrometer application for soil compaction quantification. 2012. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALA/BC) Piracicaba.