Temporal changes of soil physical and hydraulic properties in strawberry fields

Even over short time intervals, soil properties are subject to variation, especially in managed soils. The objective of this study was to assess the temporal changes of soil physical and hydraulic properties in strawberry fields cultivated under surface drip fertigation in Turuçu, Brazil. Intact core samples were collected from the near surface soil layer of seedbeds to determine the total porosity (TP), macroporosity (MA), matrix porosity, bulk density (BD), available water capacity (AWC), field capacity, wilting point and Dexter’s S index. Aggregate samples were collected from the arable layer to determine the aggregate size distribution and aggregate mean weight diameter. All samples were collected from 15 strawberry fields and at four different times during the 2007–2008 strawberry growing cycle. Although soil pore‐solid relations are expected to adjust soon after seedbed construction, their variation was only evident after >13 weeks. Even though values of TP and MA decreased with time, and those of BD increased near the end of the growing cycle, all the soils maintained their capacity to support root activity as indicated by critical values of Dexter’s index (S > 0.03). The amount of relatively large aggregates (9.51–2.00 mm) and AWC increased towards the end of the strawberry cultivation cycle. With changes in soil structure improving soil physical quality, strawberry development benefitted. We showed that if farmers gradually increase the amount of water through fertigation to a maximum value occurring at the end of crop cycle instead of applying water at a constant rate, water and energy use efficiency in agriculture would improve.