The present work was carried out to evaluate soil carbon susceptibility to oxidation by potassium permanganate in adystroferric Red Latosol (Oxisol) cultivated with coffee (Coffea arabica L.) at different planting spacings. The experiment was installed in 1992 at the Experimental Farm of EPAMIG, in Machado (Minas Gerais State-Brazil). Treatments consisted of a combination of four row spacings (2.0, 2.5, 3.0, and 3.5 m) with three spacings within the row (0.5, 0.75, and 1.0 m). As a reference, soil samples were also collected in an area under native forest. For assessing the degree of oxidation of the organic carbon (OC), soil samples were collected at the inter-row and in the coffee canopy projection, at the 0-0.05 and 0-0.1 m soil depths. Labile C in inter-row samples located at the soil surface layer(0-0.05 m) is, in general, higher than that measured in samples collected in the coffee canopy projection. The amplitude of variation of C in different soil organic fractions follows the order: labile C > non labile C > Organic C.Thus, labile C could be used as a sensitive index to evaluate the impact of different coffee planting systems and management practices on soil organic matter pools. Labile and non labile C contents are not influenced by the number of coffee plants per area. However, these indexes are dependent on coffee plants inter-row spacings, soil depth and sampling location.
Coffea arabica L.; planting density; soil organic matter; labile carbon
