Agricultural practices that reduce soil degradation and improve agricultural sustainability are needed particularly for preluvosoil. No-tillage planting causes minimal soil disturbance and combined with crop rotation may hold potential to meet these goals. Soil enzyme activities can provide information on how soil management affects the soil potential to perform processes, such as decomposition and nutrient cycling. Soil enzyme activities (actual and potential dehydrogenase, catalase, acid and alkaline phosphatase) were determined in the 0–20–, 20–40– and 40–60–cm layers of a preluvosoil submitted to a complex tillage (no-till and conventional tillage) and crop rotation (2– and 6–crop rotations)   experiment. Each activity in both non-tilled and conventionally tilled soil under all crops of both rotations decreased with increasing sampling depth. No-till – in comparison with conventional tillage – resulted in significantly higher soil enzymatic activities in the 0–20– and in significantly lower activities in the deeper layers. The soil under maize or wheat was more enzyme-active in the 6– than in the 2–crop rotation. In the 2–crop rotation, higher enzymatic activities were recorded under wheat than under maize. The enzymatic indicators of soil quality were calculated from the values of enzymatic activities determined in the plots of the 6-crop rotation. The results obtained show that the different hierarchies of the six plots as registered in 2008 may be related to the different nature of crops and kind of fertilisers. This means that by determination of enzymatic activities, valuable information can be obtained regarding fertility status of soils.

catalase; crop rotation; dehydrogenase; phosphatase; preluvosoil; tillage

Presentation: oral