The intensively increasing agricultural use of Distrito Federal soils may compromise their quality and trigger environmental problems in the region. Given this fact, the objective of this work was to study the soil quality (SQ) indicators, in areas under no tillage (PD), with diversified managements (corn-soybean rotation and bean-sorghum succession), at the Riberão Extrema watershed, Distrito Federal. Soil bulk density (Ds), flocculation index (GF), organic matter (MO), cation exchange capacity (CTC), microbial respiration (Rmic) and microbial biomass carbon (Cmic) were the attributes of SQ evaluated. Statistical analysis was performed using the statistical software Statistics Analysis System (SAS) and consisted of analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey test for comparison of means. Results show that some of the evaluated SQ indicators were affected by different types of soil management under evaluation (Ds, Cmic and MO), while others were not sensitive to them (GF, CTC and Rmic). Positive correlation was found between MO and CTC of the soils in both investigated treatments, highlighting the importance of no tillage system on the chemical properties of soil.
agriculture sustainability; physical soil attributes; chemical soil attributes; biological soil attributes
