Evaluating Pfeiffer Chromatography for Its Validation as an Indicator of Soil Quality

Abstract

Soil monitoring is fundamental to promote sustainability agroecosystems. It is necessary to consider indicators that bring together biological, physical, chemical and inter-relational attributes. Pfeiffer chromatography (PC) represents an important method for soil diagnosis, so the present study aims to analyze it in order to contribute to its validation. The soil samples of 12 production systems were evaluated in quintuplicate. The chromas were elaborated using Whatman n^o 4 filter paper, and the soil extract was performed by sodium hydroxide solution 1%. The results were obtained using revealing solution (AgNO₃ 0.5%) ascension by capillarity, and the chrome zones: central, internal, medium and external were correlated to soil penetration, chemical, biological and enzymatic parameters, respectively. Variance analysis was applied to the results that presented normal distribution and the means were compared by Scott-Knott test. T-test for Spearman correlations and principal component analysis were used to evaluate the correlations. There was negative correlation between the central zone and the average penetration resistance within the range 0-40 cm in depth. The internal, medium and external zones presented positive correlation with organic matter, carbon microbial biomass, and enzymatic activities, respectively. Quality standard features such as coloration, size and proportion of zones, presence of enzymatic clouds, peaks and radial lines were also confirmed. Thus, the standardization developed by this study contributed to validation of PC. Since PC is a low-cost and easy-to-perform method, it proves to be a useful tool allowing farmers autonomy to monitoring different agricultural systems, contributing to their production sustainable.