Soil Physical Quality Estimation Applying The Best-Procedure: A Case Study Under Contrasting Soil Management

The BEST-procedure was applied to estimate the soil physical quality (SPQ) of a marginal soil managed with no tillage for a long time or shallow tilled from a few days. Six soil indicators, directly or indirectly obtained from BEST, were used to account for the modifications due to the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic soil properties, that specifically were: bulk density, saturated hydraulic conductivity, macroporosity, air capacity, plant available water capacity and relative field capacity. The guidelines of literature were considered to evaluate the optimal values of such indicators and mean SPQ values were used to compare the effects of contrasting soil management (freshly tilled soil vs undisturbed soil). The long-term untilled soil showed a tendency towards physical degradation and, for this, it was more prone to compaction and, consequently, water erosion during intense rainfall events. However, the results highlighted that a relative improvement was possible by means of surface soil tillage because, as a matter of fact, tillage improved the soil properties in both hydrodynamic and hydrostatic terms. The study confirmed the diagnostic ability of the BEST procedure to estimate the soil physical quality for comparison purposes. More generally, the procedure may be suggested to evaluate the SPQ in a relatively simple, easy and fast way, and appropriately evaluate the land use sustainability of large areas.