This study aimed to identify a set of soil attributes, chemical (CA), physical (PA), and biological (BA), correlated to common bean grain yield in order to establish the most adequate soil conditions to cultivate this legume under organic production system. Data from two experiments installed in November 2003 with cultivar Pérola was used, one under no-tillage and the another in conventional tillage, in Santo Antônio de Goiás, GO, in an Oxisol, in a randomized block design, with four replications. The treatments consisted of cover crops sunn hemp, pigeon pea, velvet bean, sorghum, and fallow. Samples were taken from soil layer of 0 - 0.10 m in 2007 for determination of CA, PA, and BA. Grain yield showed positive linear correlation with the percentage of aggregates with a diameter greater than 2 mm (AGR), mean weighted diameter of aggregates, microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and microbial quotient, and negative one with the basal respiration, metabolic quotient and soil copper content. Based on multiple regression analysis, AGR, MBC and soil organic matter were the soil attributes that together better explained grain yield.
Phaseolus vulgaris L.; no-tillage; soil aggregation; microbial biomass carbon; soil organic matter
