Integrated crop-livestock system in tropical Brazil: Toward a sustainable production system

• Pastures provide better soil aggregation.
• Rotation between soybean and pasture results in higher quality pasture.
• Integrated crop-livestock improves chemical and biological soil attributes.
• Emissions of greenhouse gases during the soybean cycle are smaller in no-tillage and integrated crop-livestock.
• Rotation of pasture and crops is an efficient production system.

Performance of soil management systems was initiated in 1995 in a field experiment in Dourados, MS, Brazil, with the following systems: CS – conventional tillage; NTS – no-tillage; ICLS – integrated crop-livestock with soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) and pasture under no-till, rotating every two years, and PP – permanent pasture. Pastures (Brachiaria decumbens) were grazed by heifers with stocking rate adjusted to constant supply of forage. The hypothesis was that rotation of crops and pastures would be more efficient and present beneficial effects to the environment. More complex and diversified production systems may exhibit synergism between components to result in better soil physical structure, greater efficiency in use of nutrients by plants, greater accumulation of labile fractions of soil organic matter, greater diversity and biological activity in soil, and lower occurrence of nematodes and weeds. Better soil conditions in ICLS allowed greater resilience; over the years of assessment soybean and pasture yields were less affected by drought and frost. The ICLS was very efficient, accumulating soil C and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Soil quality was improved in integrated systems with larger number of components and greater interaction between these components (ICLS) compared to simple systems. Based on soil attributes, we affirmed in this long-term study that the ICLS system is agronomically and environmentally efficient and sustainable.

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