The integrated analysis for physical, chemical and biological parameters in soil management systems is an important tool to check the sustainability of agroecosystems, allowing to identify the main critical constraints that impair the best management conditions. This approach has been used to evaluate production of tomato in organic and conventional systems in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, comparing greenhouse and field cultivation. In both cases, native forest or permanent pasture was taken as basal reference in each of the evaluated rural establishments. The results from organic systems in Serra Negra showed higher water holding capacity (CC) and lower clay dispersion (microaggregation increase) than the conventional system, indicating more stabilized soil aggregates. In conventional systems higher electrical conductivity was observed, which can be indicative of high soluble salt availability for the plants. The principal component analysis (PCA) for the data collected in Serra Negra allowed to conclude that there is greater similarity between organic systems and basal references, considering most of the biological and chemical indicators. It was also observed that organic C, total N, polysaccharides, fluorescein diacetate hydrolysis (FDA) and dehydrogenase activity were positively related to organic systems, natural forest (M1) and pasture (P1), whereas V%, pH, Mn, Mg, Ca and soil particle dispersion ratio were inversely related to those systems. The model of PCA for the data collected in Araraquara efficiently separated the cultivated areas from their respective native forests, based on biological indicators.
soil quality; principal component analysis; agroecosystem; sustainability
