Subsoil Constraints for Crop Production

Introduction to subsoil constraints for crop production.- The geological, geomorphological, climatic, and hydrological background of Tropical Regoliths and hostile subsoils: The Brazilian landmass.- Soil acidity and acidification.- Salinity, Sodicity and Alkalinity.- Pyritic subsoils in acid sulfate soils and similar problems in mined areas with sulfidic rocks.- Physical subsoil constraints of agricultural and forestry land.- Subsoil and surface soil constraints of mined land and tailings.- Sand and gravel subsoils.- Soilborne pathogens.- Root systems of agricultural crops and their response to physical and chemical subsoil constraints.- Roots and beneficial interactions with soil microbes.- Nutrient acquisition with particular reference to subsoil constraints.- Water acquisition by roots from the subsoil: impact of physical constraints on the dynamics of water capture.- Deep soil carbon - characteristics and measurement with particular bearing on kaolinitic profiles.- Live subsoils: tropical regolith and biota interactions.- Subsoil constraints for crop production: recent advances, new technologies and priorities for further research.

Teogenes Oliveira  is currently a Professor at the Federal University of Viçosa, Brazil, having worked for several years at the Federal University of Ceará, where he continues to run a Postgraduate Program in Ecology and Natural Resources. His academic and scientific work is in the area of Soil Science, focusing especially on the study of soil and water management and conservation and agroecology, with emphasis on the management of soil organic matter and residues and their role in the quality of the soil and the environment.  He also develops academic and scientific activities that seek to evaluate the consequences of intensive soil use, together with the design and evaluation of more environmentally balanced agricultural systems, made possible through the understanding and application of concepts for reinforcing ecological processes and relationships. His expertise in the Brazilian semi-arid region has helped in generating data and in training people to work with both high and low external-input cultivation systems: irrigated systems, mixed cropping (agroforestry) systems, organic, and minimum tillage systems, all with a view to strengthening ecological processes and relationships. He has published 110 refereed journal papers, 18 book chapters and articles in proceedings, and edited 6 books.





Richard Bell, who has been Professor of Land Management at Murdoch University since 2007,  is a specialist in soil fertility and crop management  with lecturing and research experience in Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Fiji,  Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. His interests are in management and fertility constraints associated with sandy, acid, salt-affected and degraded soils; nutrient cycling in farmland, rehabilitated land and forests; rehabilitation of degraded