EMBRAPA releases software to assist in soil nutrient management

The Nutrient Management Support System software, NuMaSS 2.2 was released in Brazil on August 14 in Bragança, a municipality in the Northeast Region of the State of Pará, during an event promoted by the Eastern Amazonia EMBRAPA Center (Belem, Pará) - a unit of the Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural Research, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Production and one of the collaborating institutions in the international process of the software’s development.

The free software is an auxiliary tool to assist in the management of soil nutrients and acidity, which has an extensive data base on the fertility of soils in Tropical Regions of Latin America, Africa and Asia. Brazilian experiments were conducted in Amazonia (States of Rondônia, Amazonas and Pará), the Cerrados of Central Brazil and the State of Mato Grosso do Sul.

The software provides recommendations for nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers and lime for crops of regional interest - assisting in the detection of applications that are excessive or deficient, as well as considerations on the economic viability of decisions made by users.

Among the crops considered by NuMaSS 2.2 are cassava, corn, cowpea, phaseolus bean, peanut, millet, potato, soybean, sweet potato, upland rice, wheat, pastures and peach palm for heart-of-palm production.

EMBRAPA researcher Manoel da Silva Cravo, who conducted local research to validate de software and helped translate NuMaSS 2.2 to Portuguese, points out that “agricultural practices in Northeastern Pará, where the soil are acid and have limited nutrients, will be highlighted during the first training event for extentionists and farmers providing them access to a new decision support tool for fertilizer and lime recommendations in the region”.

NuMaSS was developed via collaboration of an international network of institutions and a project coordinated by Dr. Thomas Jot Smyth within the Soil Management Collaborative Research Support Program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Jot Smyth is a professor at North Carolina State University, a partner institution with EMBRAPA, the Municipal Office of Bragança and two local agricultural enterprises - ‘Agropecuaria Milênio’ and ‘Agropecuaria Brasil’, in the training workshop conducted on August 14-16.

Text: produced on 8/10/2007 by the journalist Izabel Drulla Brandao (Mtb 1084/PR)

Eastern Amazonia EMBRAPA

Contacts: phone (91) 3204 1200 - izabel@cpatu.embrapa.br

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