The spatial variability of some physical and chemical characteristics of a compound of soils under grapevine (Vitis vinifera-L) cultivation was studied in the county Vitória Brasil, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Main objective was research into the spatial dependence of these soil characteristics and their variability, frequency distribution and minimum number of soil subsamples for grapevine crop. Soil data were collected in grid sampling at 156 points, using geoestatistics for the data analysis. Highest variability was found for macroporosity (MA), P, K, Ca, Mg, SB, and CTC, and the smallest for bulk density (BD), pH, and V. The minimum number of soil subsamples to form a compound and representative sample varied between 1 (pH and V) and 241 (Mg), with a mean of 64 subsamples. In relation to spatial dependence, P and V presented, respectively, strong and weak dependence, while the other attributes displayed a moderate dependency. Thus, the range of physical characteristics varied from 2.56 to 4.32 m and from 1.82 to 5.64 m for chemical characteristics.
geoestatistics; soil sampling; spatial dependence; physical soil characteristics; chemical soil characteristics
