SOIL PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND ORGANIC CARBON CONTENT UNDER DIFFERENT LAND USES

In the watershed Agua Fria, in Barra do Choca (BA), native vegetation and environmentally protected areas have been replaced by coffee and pasture cultivation. This study evaluated the physical characteristics, particle size distribution, water dispersible clay, flocculation, mean weight diameter and aggregate stability index and organic C concentration of soils under different land uses, in the area surroundings the above watershed. Soil samples were collected from six different fields: two coffee plantations (manual and mechanical cultivation), two pastures and two native forest areas were used as references. The different land uses reduced the aggregate stability, as indicated by the reduction of the mean weight diameter, increase of small-sized aggregates and lower organic C contents, in the order forest > pasture > coffee plantation.