Ensaio de lixiviação dos macroelementos de um remineralizador aplicado a um nitossolo vermelho eutroférrico

Abstract

Basalt extraction from quarries results in expressive amounts of rock dust as a waste, incurring in costs with transportation and correct disposal of this material. A viable alternative to add value to that rock dust is to use it as a soil remineralizer that can provide slow-release macronutrients and serve as a supplement to conventional fertilizers. In this work, PVC columns were used to evaluate the leaching dynamics of Ca, Mg and P from a soil/rock dust mixture, simulating in a lab environment a 10 weeks timespan and adding to the columns a water volume equal to the difference between the annual precipitation and evaporation averages in the city of Francisco Beltrão. A positive and significant linear correlation was observed between the amounts of added rock dust and the concentrations of Ca, Mg and P in the leached solution, indicating a significant increase in the availability of those macronutrients in the soil solution and, therefore, an increase in the amount of those macronutrients that could potentially be absorbed by the plants’ roots.