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Accumulation of organic components and its association with macroaggregation in a sandy loam soil following conservation tillage

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Abstract

Background and aims

This paper was primarily devoted to reveal the composition of soil organic carbon (C) at a molecular level and to compare the differences existing among tillage practices after 8 years of contrasting managements, aiming to identify the effects of conservation tillage on the accumulation process of soil organic C and its association with macroaggregation.

Methods

A sandy loam soil following 8-year conservation tillage was collected to identify the dynamics of organic components and their associations with macroaggregation. The content of particulate organic matter within macroaggregates was determined using aggregate fractionation techniques.

Results

Conservation tillage improved the accumulation efficiency of different C functional groups in large and small macroaggregates, and resulted in a higher soil organic C level. The content of C functional groups was significantly and positively correlated with the C amount of subfractions in macroaggregates. The accumulation of organic components, particularly the methoxyl/N-alkyl C in the 0–5 cm layer and the O-alkyl C in the 5–10 cm layer, in turn, accelerated soil macroaggregation.

Conclusions

Overall, organic component accumulation and soil macroaggregation were interacted on each other. Our results suggested that the enrichment of methoxyl/N-alkyl C and O-alkyl C in the test soil following conservation tillage could effectively promote organic C accumulation and macroaggregation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Contract No. 2016YFD0200304), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Contract No. 41471239 and No. 41501327) and the Science and Technology Service Network Initiative (No. KFJ-SW-STS-142).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fengqiu Agro-ecological Experimental Station, State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 71 East Beijing Road, Nanjing, 210008, People’s Republic of China

    XianFeng Zhang, AnNing Zhu, WenLiang Yang & JiaBao Zhang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19 Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

    XianFeng Zhang

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  1. XianFeng Zhang
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  2. AnNing Zhu
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  3. WenLiang Yang
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Correspondence to AnNing Zhu.

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Responsible Editor: John A. Kirkegaard.

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Zhang, X., Zhu, A., Yang, W. et al. Accumulation of organic components and its association with macroaggregation in a sandy loam soil following conservation tillage. Plant Soil 416, 1–15 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-017-3183-3

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