Effects of Applying Liquid Swine Manure on Soil Quality and Yield Production in Tropical Soybean Crops (Paraná, Brazil)

Valdemir Antoneli, Ana Caroline Mosele, João Anésio Bednarz, Manuel Pulido-Fernández, Javier Lozano-Parra, Saskia Deborah Keesstra and Jesús Rodrigo-Comino
Additional contact information
Valdemir Antoneli: Department of Geography, Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste (UNICENTRO), Irati, P.C. 84500-000 Paraná, Brazil
Ana Caroline Mosele: Department of Geography, Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste (UNICENTRO), Irati, P.C. 84500-000 Paraná, Brazil
João Anésio Bednarz: Department of Geography, Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste (UNICENTRO), Irati, P.C. 84500-000 Paraná, Brazil
Manuel Pulido-Fernández: GeoEnvironmental Research Group, Department of Arts and Territory Sciences, University of Extremadura, 10071 Cáceres, Spain
Javier Lozano-Parra: Instituto de Geografía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Avda. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Santiago de Chile 7820436, Chile
Saskia Deborah Keesstra: Soil, Water and Land Use Team, Wageningen Environmental Research, Wageningen UR, 6708PB Wageningen, The Netherlands
Jesús Rodrigo-Comino: Physical Geography, Trier University, 54286 Trier, Germany

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 14, 1-11

Abstract: Brazil is one of the main producers of pork meat in the world. It is well-known that the agricultural sector is a key component of the economic development of this country, where super-intensive fields are only competitive in the globalized market. For the farmers, the application of swine manure to fertilize the soil can increase the yearly income, but it also may cause serious environmental problems related to soil health and soil quality. In this research, we assessed the effects of applying liquid swine manure in a tropical soybean ( Glycine max) plantation to better understand when this technique stops being effective and starts causing a threat to soil health and quality. Therefore, we compared values of several soil properties and the soybean yield on treated fields at 10 random points belonging to 7 different plots that were treated with the liquid swine manure over a period ranging from 0 to 15 years. The results showed a positive linear trend in soybean production from 2.45 to 3.08 Mg ha −1 yr −1 . This positive trend was also recorded for some key soil parameters such as porosity and exchangeable cations content (Ca, Mg, K, and Al). Additionally, positive effects were also found for organic matter content after 10 years of application. Our findings suggest that the use of liquid swine manure has a positive effect on soybean yield and improves soil quality, particularly on mixed farms where pigs are intensively raised nearby cultivated fields.

Keywords: chronosequence; mixed-farming; agricultural land management; agricultural intensification; fertilization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/14/3898/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/14/3898/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:14:p:3898-:d:249298

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().