Intensive conventional farming with high-energy input that has vitally degraded soils in farmlands and other ecosystems globally. In contrast, conservation tillage (e.g., reduced tillage, no-tillage and crop residues return) as sustainable ways have broadly applied and the effects of these practices have been studied. However, little has been done to evaluate the impact on the soils beyond 1-m depth, a major part of the Critical Zone of agro-ecosystem.

A research team leading by LIANG Chao from the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences recently evaluate the impact of farming tillages on 3-meter soil profiles after 10-year manipulations in a Mollisol of Northeast China and provide an underneath mechanism on how long-term conservation tillage regenerate deep healthy soil.

They found that conservation tillage not only promoted soil nutrient and water holding capacities, restored microbial diversity, richness, and ecological function in the whole 3-m soil profile, but also potentially reduced the dose of nitrogen fertilizer and mitigated nitrogen contamination to deep groundwater, thus promoting sustainable agriculture.

These findings revealed that agricultural soil under appropriate management may ultimately allow access to nutrients and water from deeper soil without reclaiming more natural land areas, reduce nutrient loss to groundwater, and improve the self-sustaining ability of farmland in the face of climate change

This study, supported by the National Key Research and Development Program and National Natural Science Foundation of China, was published in Science of the Total Environment entitled "Low-disturbance Farming Regenerates Healthy Deep Soil toward Sustainable Agriculture - Evidence from long-term no-tillage with stover mulching in Mollisols".

                                                  Fig.1 Graphic abstract (Image by DENG Fangbo)

Contact 

YUE Qian

Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences 

Tel: 86-24-83970324 

E-mail: yueqian@iae.ac.cn 

Web: http://english.iae.cas.cn