Soil quality in the practice of ecological farmers and their connection with the soil fertility of science

Abstract

The local knowledge of the soil of a group of ecological farmers was characterized, establishing
that they have references to differentiate the soils of their territory, which together with the perception
of their orography, allows them to estimate the quality of the same, recreating three
categories, soils Of good, fair and poor quality. The correspondence of the three categories
of soil quality used by farmers with a characterization of soil fertility was established through a
multivariate analysis of main components and a cluster analysis, performed by analyzing some
physical and chemical variables. It was obtained that the categories of soil quality perceived
by farmers are related in 83.33% with the characterization of fertility. In addition, the variables
most related to this perception are organic matter, clays, weighted average diameter,% moisture,
color and cation exchange capacity.