Evaluation of the state of the soils under different Amazonian agroecosystems

Abstract

To know the soils in its complexity is central point for decision makingabout the handling of
maintainable agroecosystems. The objective of this work was to evaluate the quality of the soil
under different agroecosystems, starting from systems of indicators. It was taken with base the
tool proposed by Nicolls and Altieri (2001), that it allows a wide and multidimensional vision, taking
into account the chemical, physical and biological attributes of the soils, without hierarchize
them. They were appraised soils under four agroecosystems: (1) forest, (2) agroforestry system,
(3) pasture and (4) conventional system of cultivation. The soil under the forest was superior in all
the indicators to the other agroecosystems. Such result reinforces the theory of the agroecology
that the quality of the soil is strongly related to the diversity and complexity of the agroecosystem.