The practice of burning the sugarcane straw in Brazilian plantations has to be eliminated, which will increase the usage of mechanical harvesting, owing to changes in the production systems and the environmental demands. In this paper studies about the influence of cane harvesting management (green and burnt cane) in the attributes of Tableland soils are resumed, also pointing to research demands. In general, the studies investigated the attributes of the arable layer, i.e., little has been studied about effects of the burning practice in the deeper soil layers, even though Tableland soils show a cohesive character that lead to differences in the soil management. About the experiments duration, the usually short term studies did not show differences in the soil attributes due to changes of the sugarcane harvesting system; though they indicated that these effects could happen in medium or long terms. Chemical soil attributes were the most studied followed by biological and physical. The data acquired indicate that harvesting sugarcane without burning alters positively the soil attributes and the soil quality. However, the studies are generally with manual harvesting and, thus, not sufficient to inform about the effect of mechanized harvesting without burning of sugarcane straw in the Tableland soils.
green and burnt cane; edaphic attributes; mechanized harvesting
