Evaluación de las prácticas agroecológicas y su influencia en la actividad biológica del suelo en agroecosistemas de la Merced, Pichincha

Abstract

Soil health has become a crucial issue for food production and the fight against climate change, especially in the face of the advance of soil degradation both nationally and internationally, reaching 34% of degraded fertile agricultural soil, resulting in the loss of between 30 and 50 tons per hectare per year. This research focuses on evaluating the influence of different types of agroecological practices on the biological activity of soil in agroecosystems of La Merced, Pichincha. For this, a description of the agroecological, traditional and fallow management was made, in addition to the natural and degraded reference ecosystems, complemented with a laboratory analysis of the physical, chemical and biological characteristics where data were obtained on its texture, pH level, organic matter content and macronutrients, to determine the color of each soil, the Munsell table was used. Likewise, the amount of microbial carbon dioxide (CO2) emanating from the samples was measured using two methodologies: SOLVITA and a CO2 trap with potassium hydroxide (KOH), with their respective statistical analysis. The results showed better soil quality conditions in those places where traditional and agroecological management techniques are implemented, reaching values close to those obtained in the natural ecosystem taken as a reference. It is concluded that traditional management is the most effective to improve soil quality, followed closely by agroecological management. Therefore, a guide was developed in which management strategies are proposed that combine traditional and agroecological techniques to optimize soil biological activity.