Modifications in the quantity and quality of soil pores of a "Latossolo Amarelo alico" located in the Brazilian tableland ecosystem under three circumstances (natural forestry, cropped to citrus and cropped to cassava) were evaluated through analysis of water retention curves. These were determined with 10 replications using undisturbed soil samples (randomly collected in each treatment) submitted to tensions of 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 5.0 kPa (porous plate funnels) and 30.0, 70.0, 100.0, 500.0 and 1500.0 kPa (porous plate pressure chambers). After the application of the Tukey test at the level of 5% of probability to the results, it was possible to verify that there was a decrease of the soil macroporosity in the soil cropped under citrus. This fact, in association with the determination of the relative soil hydraulic conductivity, leads to a strong tendency that the soil with citrus presents hydraulic conductivity values always smaller than those for the soil with forestry and cassava. It was also verified that the soil, when cropped to cassava, increased its soil water holding capacity at the 0.10 m soil depth, in comparison with the soil cropped to citrus. A fact also relevant from the results was that the citrus soil management compacted more intensively the soil than the cassava one; this caused a lesser water retention in the soil under citrus than the soil under forestry at lower soil water tensions and more water retention than the forestry at higher tensions.
tablelands; retention curve; relative hydraulic conductivit
