Environmental management and its influence on the quality of cerrado soils

The objective was to evaluate the effects of different types of management of a Latossolo Vermelho distrófico (Oxisol) on edaphic properties, as well as identifying physical, chemical and biological indicators with greater weighting for soil quality discrimination among the managed environments. The design used was completely randomized: Native Cerrado (NC); No-tillage (NT); Forestry (F); Pasture (P); and Agroforestry (AF), in which 3 soil samples were collected, in the layer from 0 to 20 cm. Chemical, physical and biological, variables were determined and analyzed with the aid of the GENES application, subjecting them to analysis of variance and discrimination by Tukey test (p<0.05). After that, the multivariate technique of principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to identify the indicators and group similar environments. That physical and biological attributes form quality indicators with greater contributions in the differentiation of environments.