Determinación de un índice para calidad del suelo como herramienta para medir la sostenibilidad productiva de una finca bananera

Abstract

The natural soil resource, in the last decade of the 21st century acquired great importance because its natural fertility is affected by agricultural production systems such as monoculture which in turn has different variants such as the use of excessive chemicals is therefore called as conventional or chemical production, that is to say, it is the predominant model in banana cultivation, on the other hand, there is organic production or also called conservation agriculture since it is taking great momentum in Ecuador, especially in the small banana farms in the province of El Oro, so it is urgent to find indicators according to the production and soil properties that warn if the model used is sustainable in the long term and what elements of the soil are those that affect production and thus optimize resources. In this context, research was proposed in the cantons of Santa Rosa and Machala of the province of El Oro, Ecuador; in two farms with banana exploitation, with which a database structured by soil analysis and production register (in kilogram of fresh fruit) was formed for the years: 2015, 2016,2017. The objective of the study was the comparison of chemical variables related to the yield of banana between the farms "Yolanda" and "Patricia". The variables compared were: soil pH, electrical conductivity (EC), organic matter (MO), N, P, K Ca, Mg, Relations (Ca / Mg, Mg / K, Ca / K, Ca + Mg / K) . The production of annual kilogram and analysis of basic soils were used as a variable in the comparisons. The statistical analysis was with a level of significance p <(0.05) with mean, standard deviations and t test of independent samples for the comparison of results. Next, an analysis of the main components was carried out to select the variables that most affect the total variation of data, a process that allowed the construction of the soil quality index. Significant differences were observed between the production of farms between organic management and conventional management, due to increased production of the "Patricia" farm in 2015 (995 Kg / Ha), 2016 (1055.3 Kg / Ha) and 2017 (896.8 Kg / Ha) in front of the "Yolanda" farm with (815.1 Kg / Ha); (713.5 Kg / Ha); (1029.3 Kg / Ha); for the years of 2015 to 2017 respectively. The result showed a low correlation (R2) between the sum of the total production of the two farms with the following independent variables: MO (0.3463), and the Ca / Mg (0.0287), Ca / K (0 , 2605), Mg / K (0.1892), Ca + Mg / K (0.2347), with the linear adjustment of the chemical properties of the soil, I can verify that the OM is the indicator that most affects the two farms , where organic production shows the best results; synthesizing, then, I will say, to conclude that obtaining OM facilitates a cationic change in the soil and promoting development in the edaphic microfauna, indirectly fruitful on the fertility of a soil. It is thus verified that most of this statistical method used to calculate the yield and index of the quality of the soil, underestimate values that do not have scores of certain indicators influenced.