Soil fertility characterization in Brazilian pastures through soil chemical and physical analysis

Brazil is largely occupied by pastures under varying conditions, rising needs for systematic assessment of soil fertility and improvement of management strategies. Soil analyses are valuable tools for fertility assessment, but its use can be amplified to foster information exchanges between farmers, service providers and fertilizer vendors in broader scales. So, our objective was to characterize the fertility dynamic of Brazilian pastures through its soil chemical and physical properties. We employed soil analysis results collected from different land uses (pasture, integrated system, and native vegetation), soil depths (0–5 cm, 5–10 cm, 10–20 cm, and 20–30 cm) and textural classes extracted from the Brazilian Soil Classification System to determine Land Use Fertility Profiles based on two core dimensions representing soil fertility and acidity, addressing 35 % and 24 % of the total variance, respectively. Stratified comparisons showed that the acidity dimension distinguished native vegetation from integrated system soils; fertility differences between textural groups in superficial layers were more frequent among pastures samples than among integrated systems ones and diminished in depth. The acidity dimension remained differing sandy and medium texture soils from clayey and heavy clayey ones. In the crossed comparisons, our results indicated that sandy soils under pasture concentrate their heterogeneity in deeper layers (20–30 cm). Thus, sampling schemes should be conducted up to these depths to improve efficiency in management strategies. This approach aimed at contributing to the data-modeling scope of agribusiness digital transformation and to the global agenda for sustainable food supply by enhancing soil fertility efficiency.