Spacial Variability of Balanced Indexes of Kenworthy(BIK) for Macro and Micronutrients on the Coffee Canephora

Abstract

The nutritional monitoring of coffee is essential for the construction and maintenance of efficient production systems since it brings several contributions to coffee cultivation and allows to consider the spatial variation present in the productions. The objective of this paper was to analyze and describe the spatial behavior of the coffee nutritional status based on the Balanced Indexes of Kenworthy (BIK). The experiment in southern Espírito Santo, in an area planted with seminal conilon coffee (Lat 20°37’31’’S e 41°05’22’’W). 140 points were georeferenced within a coffee crop, each sampling point contained three plants. Leaf samples were analyzed in order to determine levels of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), Sulfur (S), Boron (B), Manganese (Mn), Zinc (Zn) and Copper (Cu), and the BIK it was determined for all nutrients. The indexes and the yield (Prod) were analyzed by means of geostatistics. The diagnosis presented in this study indicated a higher nutritional limitation due to the deficiency for K, Zn, Fe and B for excess for Cu, showing the nutritional imbalance of the crop. With the exception of BIK for P, all variables presented spatial dependence adjusted to the spherical and exponential models.