Cluster Analysis of the Soil Physical Attributes under Soil Preparation Systems

2. Eduardo Mondlane University, Vilankulo, Mozambique

Abstract: The adoption of conservation management systems in sugarcane is still incipient in comparison to the conventional tillage system, due to a lack of scientific knowledge on its effects in soil quality, technological quality. This work aims to study the behavior of soil physical attributes of a Dystroferric Red Latosol under no-tillage and reduced soil preparation systems in sugarcane cultivation. In each soil preparation system, the systematic sampling grid was used, composed by 32 soil sampling points, in the 0.00-0.10 and 0.00-0.20 m layers. The attributes evaluated were: soil bulk density (SD), total porosity (TP), macroporosity (MA), microporosity (MI) and soil penetration resistance (PR). The data was submitted to Shapiro-Wilk normality test (value – p ≤ 0.05) and was also verified the presence of discrepant points (outliers) considering the boxplot. Then, was performed the hierarchical grouping analysis, using Ward’s method. The physical attributes are more similar in within the preparation system, suggesting differentiated effect of the soil preparation on the attributes in the layers 0.00-0.10 and 0.10-0.20 m. In general, the relationships between soil porosity attributes in both soil preparation systems are influenced by the clayey soil texture and consequently the high soil microporosity.