Soil physical properties under different managementsan analysis through ct-scanning, transport experiments and pressure jumps characterisation

Abstract

This thesis will study the changes in the organization of soil pore space (soil architecture) in the transportation of water, solutes and colloids, and as a result of the application of conservation or ecological agriculture techniques, which can modify the properties of the soil together with transport. The soil architecture has great importance in the transport through the soil. Cracks and biopores have the characteristics of continuity and connectivity that modulate transport. This has important implications for soil productivity and ecological functions (transport of water, gases, nutrients, metabolites, agrochemicals ... as well as in the processes of transformation of organic matter). The habitat structure of the biota that regulates many of these cycles is related to soil architecture. In this way, it is of paramount importance to discover relationships between architecture descriptors and soil properties, such as permeability, apparent density or hydraulic functions of the soil. This approach emerges as a response to the EU's agricultural policy of replacing conventional agricultural management with techniques aimed at soil conservation, as this change leads to changes in soil architecture whose scope is unknown. The soils are going to be gaining a structure much more organized and stable in the time, with more macroporos, and connected in a different form than in the system of conventional tillage. In the context of non-tillage, conventional cultivation operations such as burial of amendments and compost, such as the use of fertilizers and mixtures of granular formulations with the soil, may be limited by the use of conventional techniques. The challenge of reconciling the minimum tillage with the rest of the cultivation operations requires efforts in innovation to try to improve the techniques of application of organic fertilizers and minerals. This brings together research and innovation for the substitution or modification of conventional cultivation techniques.