Avaliação participativa da qualidade do solo e sanidade dos cultivos para o manejo integrado da hérnia das crucíferas em ambiente de montanha

Abstract

The municipality of Nova Friburgo is an important producer of brassica, in the Alto Rio Grande region, mainly cauliflower. This culture of great economic value has suffered with the incidence of clubroot causing huge losses, reaching 100% loss. For the prevention of the disease, it is necessary to understand that there is imbalance on the environment and that a change in the soil and crop management is crucial. In the region, young people have great importance in the production process and many of them study in technical courses offered by CEFFA (Centro Familiar de Formação por Alternância) Colégio Estadual Agrícola (CEA) Rei Alberto I. The courses offered at the school work with the Pedagogy of Alternation. The aim of this study was to build with farmers and their children brassica crop management opportunities for minimizing impact of clubroot disease, with the association of local and academic knowledge. Therefore, we applied two questionnaires, one with 123 students from CEFFA CEA Rei Alberto I to the selection of the Production Units who grow brassicas and present incidence of clubroot, the other one, with 48 students, seeking to characterize the production systems, as for the topography, the main crops, and management strategies used to control the disease. At the end we selected eight production units (PUs) in different watersheds, distributed in the territorial space of the 3rd district, which were characterized by the history of clubroot in the production area, the forms of tillage, acidity correction and fertilization, seedlings source, planting season, crop rotation strategies, source of irrigation water and established strategies for coexistence with clubroot. Later, there were quality assessments of the soil, the health of crops and the potential for clubroot with students and their parents in each of the UPs. Soil samples were collected for fertility analysis. Then, there was a return of the reviews for farmers so they exchanged their joining knowledge. The management practices identified in the production units (PUs) evaluated in the 3rd District of Nova Friburgo- RJ have contributed to the spread and incidence of the disease. To live with the disease a change in the local production system design is necessary, pointing to new strategies regarding the encouragement of biotic and nutritional balance of soil and crop over the pathogen. The use of indicators to assess the local impact of potential hernia of cruciferous was efficient to point out the bottlenecks in the production of brassica system against the disease. The highly acidic pH and low Ca++ content in the soil, associated with frequent mechanization without cleaning the equipment might explain the high incidence of clubroot in the production units. The PUs require monitoring over time through evaluations of agro-ecosystems, using the tools presented in this study, as well as actions aimed at promoting the indicators towards sustainability, thus leading to the balance of soil, crops and biota