ABSTRACT The concept of a no-tillage system (NTS), or “Sistema Plantio Direto,” was established in Brazil from the evolution of no-tillage (NT) or “Plantio Direto,” given the edaphoclimatic conditions and the need to promote chemical, physical and biological improvements in cultivated soils. While “Plantio Direto” is a conservationist practice, “Sistema Plantio Direto” presents itself as an agricultural production system based on the simultaneous adoption of minimum soil disturbance, maintenance of permanent soil cover and crop rotation. This study reviews the concepts of “Plantio Direto” and “Sistema Plantio Direto” in the Brazilian literature and uses two case studies in Paraná State to demonstrate the practical implications of these concepts. These two terms and their variations are recurrent themes in Brazilian scientific research and the professional environment, and may occur erroneously, hindering their adoption, results and implications. Regarding the “Sistema Plantio Direto,” we highlight the need to clarify the concepts of its basic practices to parameterize and characterize this process. The definition of crop rotation, for example, requires limits on the number of species along a given time scale, thus enabling their identification. Regarding the case studies, most grain crops conducted in Paraná State did not adopt the “Sistema Plantio Direto,” mainly neglecting the component of crop rotation. Nevertheless, the use of the “no-tillage system participatory quality index” (PQI) tool can contribute to the assessment and monitoring of the quality of the “Sistema Plantio Direto.” However, it requires adjustments to differentiate the “Sistema Plantio Direto” from the “Plantio Direto.”

Fundada em 1680, quando a Coroa portuguesa buscava expandir seus domínios na América, a Colônia do Sacramento passou de um pequeno entreposto fortificado a um importante núcleo comercial e de povoamento no início do século XVIII. Entretanto, o cerco espanhol, que se estendeu de 1735 a 1737, limitou seu caráter de centro povoador e núcleo de expansão portuguesa no Rio da Prata a um papel exclusivamente comercial e militar. O levantamento do cerco, em 1737, não implicou o abandono do bloqueio à praça, que continuou até a sua entrega definitiva à Coroa espanhola, em 1777. Procuramos, neste artigo, estabelecer um paralelo entre o cotidiano da população da Colônia do Sacramento, durante o tempo que em viveu sob o bloqueio espanhol, e o dos habitantes das praças fortes portuguesas no Marrocos e na Índia, onde a população vivia sob o constante controle de seus movimentos e de ameaças de invasão por parte dos inimigos.

Founded in 1680, when the Portuguese Crown was trying to expand its possessions in America, Colonia do Sacramento grew from a small fortified market to a major center of trade and settlement in the early eighteenth century. However, the Spanish siege that lasted from 1735 to 1737 limited its character of settlement center and core of the Portuguese expansion in the Rio de la Plata to an exclusively commercial and military role. The lifting of the siege in 1737 did not imply the abandonment of the blockade on the fortification, which continued until its final delivery to the Spanish Crown in 1777. This article has tried to point out similarities between the daily life of the population of Colonia do Sacramento during the period when they lived under the Spanish blockade, and the daily life of the inhabitants of the Portuguese strongholds in Morocco and India, where the population lived under constant control and under threats of enemy invasion.