Tillage management in agricultural fields has consequences on the dynamics of the soil structure and soil’s pore functions with far reaching effects on the sustainability of cropping system. The purpose of this study is to investigate changes in both capacity and intensity properties of a very clayey Rhodic Hapludox after 37-year of continuous conventional tillage (CT) and no till (NT) management for weed control under coffee plantations. Undisturbed soil samples were collected at four depths and used for hydro-physical characterization. The tillage treatments modified the capacity and intensity parameters differently depending on the sampled depth. Bulk density was similar at the 0–20 cm layer in both CT and NT treatments, but at the 20–40 cm layer, NT significantly increased the bulk density by (6–8%). Also, NT increased the stability of 8–2 mm macroaggregate fraction in water and significantly increased the geometric mean diameter and the mean weight diameter of the water-stable aggregates in most of the layers relative to CT. Moreover, CT increased hydraulic conductivity by 53% in the surface layer. Generally, the magnitude of the differences in soil properties as a consequence of the 2 tillage treatments was greater for hydraulic conductivity (soil intensity parameters) than the bulk density (soil capacity parameters). In the NT plots, more water was retained within the available water range, while CT presented steeper water retention curves and poorly graded pore-size distributions. The pore-size distribution and hydraulic capacity function curves showed that the impact of CT management was more pronounced at the 10–20 cm layer, while that of NT management was most significant at the 0–10 cm layer (soil surface). This study showed that in addition to soil strength indicators, soil intensity parameters (hydraulic conductivity, hydraulic capacity and soil structure) more succinctly explained differential impact of tillage systems on soils, as compared to the capacity parameters (bulk density, pore size distribution, air capacity and available water capacity).

农田的耕作管理对土壤结构的动态和土壤的孔隙功能产生影响，对种植系统的可持续性产生深远的影响。本研究的目的是调查在咖啡种植园进行 37 年连续常规耕作 (CT) 和免耕 (NT) 管理以控制杂草后，非常粘质的 Rhodic Hapludox 的容量和强度特性的变化。在四个深度收集未受干扰的土壤样品并用于水文物理表征。耕作处理根据采样深度对容量和强度参数进行了不同的修改。CT 和 NT 处理中 0-20 cm 层的体积密度相似，但在 20-40 cm 层，NT 显着增加了体积密度（6-8%）。还，相对于 CT，NT 增加了 8-2 mm 大团聚体在水中的稳定性，并显着增加了大多数层中水稳性团聚体的几何平均直径和平均重量直径。此外，CT 将表层的水力传导率提高了 53%。通常，由于 2 种耕作处理，土壤性质差异的幅度对于导水率（土壤强度参数）而言大于容重（土壤容量参数）。在 NT 图中，在可用水范围内保留了更多的水，而 CT 显示出更陡峭的保水曲线和分级较差的孔径分布。孔径分布和水力容量函数曲线表明 CT 管理的影响在 10-20 cm 层更显着，而 NT 管理在 0-10 cm 层（土壤表面）最为显着。本研究表明，除土壤强度指标外，土壤强度参数（水力传导率、水力承载力和土壤结构）与承载力参数（容重、孔径分布、空气容量和可用水容量）。