CE: 1743 CF: cag09118
SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE
Culture alternation, effect on soil in tobacco zones of Pinar del Río province
Alternancia de cultivos, su efecto sobre el suelo en zonas dedicadas a tabaco negro en Pinar del Río
Alexei Yoán Martínez Robaina1, José Manuel Febles González2, Nelson Moura do Amaral Sobrinho3, Mileisys Benítez Odio1, Mariol Morejón García1, Michel Ruíz Sánchez4 y Ramón Hernández Carballo1
1 Departamento Educación Agropecuaria, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales y Agropecuarias, Universidad de Pinar del Río “Hermanos Saiz Montes de Oca” (UPR), Calle Martí Nº 270 F. Pinar del Río, Cuba, CP 10400, E-mails: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
2 Centro de Estudios de Medio Ambiente de la Habana. Universidad de La Habana, Zapata y G, Vedado, Plaza de la Revolución, Ciudad de La Habana, CP 10400, E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
3 Departamento de Suelos, Instituto de Agronomía, Universidad Federal Rural de Rio de Janeiro, BR 465, km 7 Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, CP 23890-000, E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 4 Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Agrícolas (INCA), gaveta postal 1, San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque, Cuba, CP 32700, E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
ABSTRACT
The tobacco constitutes an important source of income to the Pinar del Río province. However, production technologies have contributed to the degradation of soils; crop alternating is one of the effective measures to mitigate this effect. The objective of the investigation was to evaluate the incidence of different variants of alternation in some chemical and physic - chemical properties of the soil. The work was developed in areas dedicated to the tobacco crop, the variants of alternation evaluated were uncultivated soil, tobacco - fallow, tobacco - corn and tobacco - polycultures. In the selected areas, 96 samples were collected at depths of 20 cm and 40 cm and 40 producers were surveyed. Descriptive statistical methods were applied to compare the means in each variant of land use. The results showed that the predominant pH was slightly acidic, the tobacco-fallow variant showed values close to neutrality. The content of organic matter did not exceed 1% in the variants of cultivated soils inferior to those not cultivated, changeable bases and cation exchange capacity were similar in the cultivated soils, and the calcium showed the highest values in tobacco-fallow. It is concluded that the different land use variants did not have a marked effect on the pH values. The content of soluble phosphorus increased in all the variants of cultivated soils. The alternation of crops, as the only measure of improvement, does not guarantee an improvement in the chemical and physic - chemical properties of the soils.
