Extensive agriculture: agroecological practices contribute to soil microbiological properties

Abstract

Intensification, with less diversification in agriculture, has led to the degradation of soils. It is
necessary to generate alternatives to industrial agriculture and to move from an input agriculture
to a process agriculture through sustainable management technologies that take into
account the properties of the soils. The objective of the present work was to evaluate the effect
of different agroecological rotations compared to a situation of conventional agriculture through
the use of biological indicators. We worked on an agroecological demonstration module where
3 sites with different rotations (PAS, TG, ARV) and conventional production lot were taken
as control situations (CV). Microbiological parameters of the soil were measured: microbial
respiration (MRI) and extracellular enzymatic activities: chitinase (NAG), sulfatase (ST), β-Glucosuccinase
(BG), acetylesterase (AE), acid phosphatase (FA) and cellobiohydrolase (CBH).
Differences (p <0.05) were observed in 6 of the 7 parameters measured. The enzymatic activity
presented the following order according to sites (CV = TG> PAS = ARV), whereas MR
behaved inversely (TG = PAS = ARV <CV). This would indicate a greater return of enzymatic activity by the soil microorganisms in the agroecological sites and greater availability of substrates,
reducing the search for more recalcitrant C and N sources.