Introduction.

A quarter of the world's agricultural soils suffer some degree of deterioration, especially due to anthropic factors. However, regeneration of soils is possible when conservation strategies are developed.

Objective.

Evaluate the effectiveness of soil conservation agroecological practices in the retention of hillside soils in the municipality of Guasca-Cundinamarca.

Materials and methods.

Four treatments were established: live barriers, dead barriers, infiltration ditches, terraces and a control. For each treatment, four repetitions were performed, for a total of 20 experimental units (EU). Pea (Pisum sativum), bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and carrot (Daucus carota) crops were established in furrows in counter-slope, obtaining 6 furrows per EU. In each EU a ditch covered with polyethylene was installed, with the aim of driving the volume of drained water and the solids dragged towards a final collector vessel. From the volume obtained, after a respective homogenization with a manual agitator, samples of 200 ml were obtained for subsequent drying and weighing in the laboratory.

Results.

The losses of soil and water by runoff presented a variable behavior, which can be attributed to the interaction among factors such as intensity and frequency of rainfall, soil texture, historical soil management and the variety of conservation practices used.

Conclusion.

All the soil conservation practices implemented contributed to reduce the loss of sediments, infiltration ditches being the best conservation practice, presenting an 87.8 % reduction in losses compared with the control.

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