Bioactivity of humic substances extracted from soils managed with integration, agriculture, livestock and forestry

ABSTRACT The humified organic matter promotes biostimulating effect such as auxins. However, information is needed on plant stimulation capacity of humic substances from soils managed with systems integrating crops, livestock, and forests. The aim of this study was to evaluate the initial performance of maize in response to the application of increasing concentrations of isolated humic substances from soils managed with integrated system of crop, livestock, and forests, applied at seed, comparing them also with humic substances isolated from soil with eucalyptus and isolated pasture and with a Cerrado adjacent area. The corn seeds were treated for 16 hours in solutions containing 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 80 mmol L-1 of C from humic substances. Then, the seeds were planted in pots of 1 dm3 containing corrected and fertilized soils, in greenhouse. Growth characteristics of shoot and root systems were evaluated. The results showed that the humic substances extracted from soils with integration of crop, livestock, and forests have positive effects on the initial performance of corn, superior to those observed under control (133%), Cerrado (29%), eucalyptus (30%), and isolated pasture (56%).