CHANGES IN WATER AVAILABILITY IN THE SOIL DUE TO TRACTOR TRAFFIC

Frequent traffic of tractors in agricultural soils, promotes soil compaction and affects the flow and water availability. The aim of this research was to study the effect of compaction induced by tractor traffic on water availability in the soil under different traffic intensities on the same path (0, 1, 3, 6 and 10 passages), to two tractors with 3.3 and 2.6 ton of weights, over three different surface conditions. The study was conducted in an Andisol, representative soil of the study area. It was determined the behavior of the water retention curve, obtaining the gravitational water, available water and hygroscopic water, to 10 and 30 cm of depth. The hygroscopic water is the most prevalent with values of up to 80% of the total water present in the soil. The water retention curves showed increases in the values of field capacity and wilting point and behaviors "flattened" indicating a high sensitivity to the applied treatments, representative of compacted soils, which give the surfaces studied characteristics do not suitable for normal crop development.