Abstract

Soil with ironstone concretions, despite presenting disadvantages from the agronomic point of view, don’t restrain its use in agriculture, livestock or forestry. However, more deeply and clear information about the behavior of crops of agricultural interest cultivated in this type of soil is absent. Due to the observation of agricultural stands with crops in this type of soil, the hypothesis that plinthite ironstone concretions in the soil interfered negatively in the development, at least in early stages, on crops of agro-economic interest. The objective was to verify the growth and development of maize (Zea mays) cultivated in soil with the presence of plinthite ironstone concretions and in the absence of them. Concretionary Petric Plinthosol were collected in the 0-0.20 m layer and part of the soil was sieved so that concretions larger than 3.10 mm in diameter were removed, thus leaving two treatments, soil with and without plinthite ironstone concretions. The experiment was then carried out and morphological and gas exchange evaluations were performed during their phenological phase. Maize grown in soil without ironstone concretions showed higher growth when compared to maize grown in soil with ironstone concretions, as well variation on gas exchange evaluation and leaf chlorophyll index. There were differences in the root and total dry matter values with more expressive value of the crops cultivated in soil without ironstone concretions. Therefore, it is concluded that plinthite ironstone concretions interfere in the development and growth of maize crop.

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