Impacts on soil chemical quality caused by supplemental feeding to beef cattle while on dry-season pasture in tropical Brazil

Abstract

The increasing demand for food worldwide has encouraged the development of production systems to optimize land use. Therefore, supplementing beef cattle pasture during the dry season (ITP) appears as a strategy to intensify meat production and enhance land use. However, little is known about ITP's effect on soil chemical quality in tropical regions in Brazil. Thus, the study aimed to evaluate ITP's effect on soil chemical quality, as well as the consequences of ITP's introduction in the spatial soil distribution of the following nutrients: carbon and nitrogen. The experiment was carried out in Sinop County, Mato Grosso State, Brazil - Southern Amazonian Region. The spatial distribution of soil chemical features related to acidity became continuous after ITP application to the surface soil layer. ITP improved soil chemical quality in the dry season, ITP and its production strategy provided the soil with: monoammonium phosphate (MAP ∼46 % P₂O₅), potassium chloride (KCl ∼ 60 % K₂O), CaCO_3, and MgCO₃ at amounts of 15, 111, 93, and 59 kg ha⁻¹ in the 0–0.20 m layer, respectively, in addition to the production of 502 kg ha⁻¹ of meat within 102 days. ITP proved to be an environmentally friendly and economically viable alternative for soil use during the dry season.