Valutazione della compattazione nei suoli vitati della Regione Veneto

The subject of this PhD thesis is the soil compaction, one of the "eight threats" of soil degradation identified by the European Commission. To assess the risk of compaction we used two models. The method of Jones et al. (2003), adopted in the project ENVASSO by the JRC of the European Commission, identifies the susceptibility to compaction based on texture and bulk density and, by means of a climatic index of subsoil moisture, allows the estimation of vulnerability. It was applied to the soils of the plains of the Veneto region identified by the soil map of the Veneto region in scale 1:250.000. The map of the vulnerability highlights that most of the soils are not vulnerable or moderately vulnerable; the method, therefore, is more suited to northern European countries than our lands, because it considers clay soils, already compacted, at low susceptibility, while coarse soils and those rich in organic matter, not at all compacted, at very high susceptibility. It was subsequently used the model of the Agriculture Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), which considers the content of organic carbon (CO) at the A horizon, the surface texture and drainage. It was chosen as the reference area the DOC Piave area and, using the ARPAV soil database, the maps of the various parameters and the final vulnerability were made. Soils with low CO (<1.7%), with fine to medium fine surface texture, moderately well to imperfectly drained have a high vulnerability to compaction, but also soils with low CO content, with medium texture and poorly drained. Therefore, the most of vineyard soils in the DOC Piave area (82% of the Cartographic Units) is characterized by a vulnerability at least moderate that requires the adoption of appropriate soil management practices to ensure its conservation. The AAFC model has produced results consistent with expectations, it feels far more effective than the previous. The validation activities in the field was initially conducted in the Giuseppe Cescon winery in Chiarano (TV), which fall in different classes of vulnerability. Measures of bulk density and penetration resistance were carried out, in the wheel traffic and in the inter-row in order to compare the natural situation with compacted one. Two sites (F soil and FLA soil)were chosen to measure the parameters. The results show that the bulk density on the wheel traffic is greater than on the inter-row both in the F soil and in the FLA soil, with higher values in more clay soil. From the measurements with the penetrometer, it is noted that more clay soils in the wheel traffic causes a deepening of compaction than sandy soils. We also observed higher values in the FLA soil as the average and in the wheel traffic. To extend the verification to the entire Veneto, 20 wineries already involved in the European project BIO-BIO were investigated through the soil survey (drillings), texture, CO and other chemical parameters. The farms are located in the Pramaggiore area, on the north of Treviso Province, in the Euganean Hills and the hills of Verona. Among the 20 farms, 5 pairs have been chosen: within each pair there was a similar type of soil, one at organic conduction and one at conventional management; parameters analyzed were bulk density, penetration and chemical-physical characteristics. There were no significant differences in bulk density between wheel traffic and inter-row, even if there is a greater value in the wheel traffic. There are, however, significant differences in some chemical parameters (TN, S, TC, TOC, S, pH, EC) between organic and conventional management. From the data of penetration resistance it is evident that conventional farms have higher values than the organic farms, and are more compacted, and the value in the wheel traffic is much higher than in the inter-row, confirming that in the passage of machinery the soil is more compressed. It was also evaluated the depth of the compaction and we have seen that, within couples, the conventional winery presents higher values. The soils with higher organic matter content were less susceptible to compaction (eg. Filippi winery) while the soils rich in clay are more easily compactable (eg. Vicentini winery). In conclusion, the experimentation of the AAFC model in wineries has returned a set of values that can be consistently represent the vulnerability of soils.

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