Spatial variability of soil compaction (Original)

Abstract

The research was carried out in the Agricultural Production Cooperative "Carlos Manuel de Céspedes" of the Basic Business Unit Atención a Productores Cañeros belonging to the Sugar Company "Arquímedes Colina Antúnez" of Bayamo municipality, Granma province, with the purpose of determining the spatial variability of soil compaction caused by the transit of new sugar cane harvesting technologies, by means of the geostatistical methodology. Two systematic designs were used: grids and transects with different sampling distances, in which the resistance to penetration was measured before and after the sugar cane harvest. As a result, the degree of compaction increased with the traffic of agricultural machinery, the lognormal distribution and spatial variability was heterogeneous in the first 10 cm of depth. For the remaining depths, no defined spatial structure was found before machinery traffic. With the passage of the machinery, a well-defined spatial structure and a redistribution of the compaction zones in the field is evident.