Systemic Soil Fertility as product of system self-organization resulting from management

Abstract

Soil Fertility is one of the most relevant fields of Soil Science related to agricultural production, especially in tropical and subtropical environments, due to the prevalence of weathered and naturally unproductive soils. However, indicators of Soil Fertility currently used do not represent what actual happens in the soil; once must be understood as a process. The wisdom of this importance occurred in Antiquity and evolved until the mid-19th century, when the mineralist concept was proposed, which is still dominant in Brazil and worldwide. In this process, Soil Fertility has been associated with current perceptions, soil chemical properties and management systems in the development of agriculture over time. During the evolution of Brazilian agriculture, from the 1960’s onwards and most notable with the consolidation of conservation management in the 1990’s, Intrinsic limitations were increasingly evident on the ability of indicators to assess the actual level of Soil Fertility and the respective response of the plants. Concurrently, the view of the soil as an open system was strengthened, and the conception of fertility began to constitute a property that emerges from the functioning of the soil, whose processes are self-organizing, due to the continuous flows of energy and matter driven by organic compounds. In this context, we present a part of the history of Brazilian agriculture, relating it to its management and Intrinsic limitations of indicators to assess Soil Fertility due to changes in soil functioning. The Intrinsic limitations added to understanding based on a systemic approach of the functional processes of the soil are the practical and theoretical bases for the proposition of another concept: Systemic Soil Fertility.