Total and available zinc were analized in samples of A and/or B horizons of twenty eight representative soil profiles of the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Amounts of Zn extracted by DTPA pH 7.3 (Zn DTPA), Mehlich-1 (Zn M1), HCl 0.1 mol.L-1 (Zn HCl), EDTA (Zn-EDTA), and NH4OAc(Zn Ac) were assessed. Amounts of total Zn (Zn T) in all samples was high, but just a small fraction of it is available. Total Zn correlated well with iron oxide content (r = 0.75). In terms of bioavailable amounts the pH was the most important component, showing correlation coefficients varying from 0.52 for Zn DTPA to 0.66 for Zn Ac. The two first axes of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) explained 66% of the variation, and showed association among the following soil attributes: silt, pH, calcium, magnesium, CEC-value, silica, iron oxides, T-ZN, DTPA-Zn, M1-Zn, HCL-Zn and EDTA-Zn, that presented correlation values higher values than 0.63 with the main axis (FL). The second axis (F2) showed an association among clay content, fine sand, and aluminum oxide. An ambiguity was clear in F1 and F2 to coarse sand. It is concluded that: most samples have potential to show up zinc deficiency in the short and medium term; PCA was efficient in grouping soils from the same parent material, indicating that the Zn analyzed in this study is positively influenced by the silt, Ca, Mg, silica, and iron oxide contents, pH, and CEC-value.
soil analysis; micronutrients; chemical extratants; multivariate analysis; principal component
