Abstract

VILLARREAL-NUNEZ, José Ezequiel; NAME-TUNON, Benjamín  and  GARCIA-ESPINO, Rubiela Alicia. Monitoring of agricultural soil fertility by laboratory analysis. Agron. Mesoam [online]. 2012, vol.23, n.2, pp.301-309. ISSN 2215-3608.

The objective of this work  was to monitor the properties of soils in the Panamanian provinces of Herrera and Los Santos  and  in villages of agricultural importance, through the study of the results of soil tests conducted over the past 21 years in the Soil Laboratory of the Agricultural Research Institute of Panama. The  main  characteristics of soil samples belonging to  each one of the 7 districts from both  provinces  and  some  towns  where  information  was available for the study were monitored. Data were compared through the years, such as: pH, organic matter,  aluminum saturation, base summation, availability of phosphorus, and micronutrients. In each case, the average results of 10 years were considered. The  districts of Las Minas, Santa Maria and  Macaracas  and  the  villages  of  Chupá,  El  Chumical and  Los  Remedies,  presented  acidification, poor  organic matter content in the topsoil and high aluminum saturation, characteristics  that  make  these  areas  more  vulnerable  to degradation of their soils.

Keywords : soil analysis; macro and  micronutrients; soil properties; soil degradation.

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