The Agroforestry Systems (SAFs) bring multiple benefits and they are an alternative to minimize
environmental degradation, and to achieve a sustainable development, due to greatest diversity of species.
This study evaluated the contribution of the leguminous trees,
Gliricídia sepium
and
Acacia angustissima
,
grown in alley cropping of banana (
Musa sp.) and “açaí” palm (
Euterpe oleraceae
) used as green manure
in the implantation of an Agroforestry Systems. They were compared the production of biomass, nutrients
cycling, nitrogen intake, activity and diversity of soil fauna, and banana productivity in the SAF, and with
the usage of the legume
Pueraria phaseoloides
and nitrogen fertilization. The SAF implantation occurred
in May 2004, at the Research Center of Embrapa Agrobiologia, in Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro State. The
following year it was planted the forest African mahogany specie (
Kaya senegalensis
), at the centre of the
legumes alleys. The experimental design was of randomized blocks with five treatments and four repetitions.
The treatments consisted of the leguminous trees arranged between the lines of bananas and the “açaí”
palm, and they were: acacia angustíssima (
Acacia angustissima), tropical kudzu (
Pueraria phaseoloides),
and gliricídia (
Gliricídia sepium); besides application of nitrogen as urea and spontaneous vegetation. To
quantify the production of biomass, and the release of N, P, Ca, Mg and K, the legumes branches were
cut and the kudzu tropical and spontaneous vegetation were mowed, in the rainy and dry seasons. The
determination of remaining dry matter, releasing of nutrients, decomposition rates, and half life time of
plant residues were held to 50 grams of fresh material from litterbags, placed on the soil surface, sampled
at 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 60 and 75 days after the installation of the experiment.
Acacia angustissima
and kudzu tropical showed higher dry biomass, 9.5 and 10.8 Mg ha
-1, respectively. The gliricídia residues
showed the highest decomposition rates, in the two year seasons.
