The objective of this work was to evaluate the behaviour of soil physical attributes of a Ferralsol under different management systems. The experiment was conducted at the Centro Experimental Central, Instituto Agronômico (IAC), located at Campinas, State of São Paulo, Brazil, during the years of 1990-1991. The soil of the area is a Ferralsol, managed with no-tillage, chisel plow and conventional tillage. The experiment was conducted in the field in plots measuring 7.5 x 15.0 m, with three replications for each management treatment. Analyzed soil physical properties were: water retention, aeration capacity, available water capacity, bulk density and hydraulic conductivity as a function of the water content (θ), through the instantaneous profile method, with evaluation of the water redistribution the soil profile for the different management systems. It can be concluded that: the chisel plow treatment showed greater water retention in the surface layer because of its greater soil porosity; soil hydraulic conductivity did not show significant differences between the three soil tillage treatments studied at the surface layer, whereas for deeper layers no-tillage system presented larger values of hydraulic conductivity as compared to the other treatments.
soil management; soil quality; soil water dynamics
