Estudio comparativo de distribución espacial del contenido de cobre en suelos bananeros, producto de atomizaciones aéreas y terrestres cantón machala

Abstract

Agricultural activity is an important pillar in the economic livelihood of society, hence the banana production that is the main economic income of the canton Machala, becoming the banana capital of the world for its quality and productive power, however, there are aspects that affect such productions, mainly the disease known as "Black Sigatoka", which directly affects the leaf area decreasing the photosynthetic capacity and therefore the quality of the bunches. Because of this situation, farmers have implemented controls with copper-based fungicides, which are applied by aerial and ground spraying, achieving efficient results in phytosanitary controls, however, it is unknown what effect it could have on the soil. Therefore, the present research is based on studying whether there are differences between the two types of atomizations in terms of the interference of copper in the banana soils of Machala and to determine the spatial behavior of the element to identify areas of greater and lesser influence in the city. The study was carried out in the banana zone of the city of Machala, with a completely randomized design with 30 sampling points, 15 for aerial atomization and 15 for terrestrial atomization, which were georeferenced and distributed throughout the study area. Sampling was carried out by means of a ladder-shaped test pit with three steps of 10 centimeters each, with a total of 90 samples for laboratory analysis. The results were organized in a spreadsheet according to the type of atomization and the depth to which they belong. The exploratory data analysis was then performed in the Rstudio software by means of box plots and bias plots. It was verified that the data were of parametric type by means of the assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variance in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software in order to perform the unifactorial Anova test and determine whether or not there are significant statistical differences between the types of atomization. Likewise, the spatial distribution of the element was determined by means of a geostatistical analysis performed in Arcmap 10.6 software. The results showed that aerial and terrestrial atomization did not present a significant statistical difference in terms of the copper content in the banana soils of Machala county; in general, the three soil depths were classified as having a medium critical level with values within the range of 1 to 20 ppm. The productive capacity of the banana zone is influenced by the type of fumigation used, generating a 17.7% higher ratio of aerial fumigation than ground fumigation. In the spatial behavior of the copper content, the greatest influence was observed in an East-South orientation with values in a range of 6 to 14 pmm, the middle zone with values between 2 to 6 ppm and the low zone with values of 0 to 2 ppm of copper was located in a West-North direction.