Journal ArticleDOI
The role of soil organic matter in maintaining soil quality in continuous cropping systems
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In this paper, the authors focus on lessons learned from long-term continuous cropping experiments, focusing on the importance of maintaining and improving soil quality in a continuous crop system, which is critical to sustaining agricultural productivity and environmental quality for future generations.Abstract:
Maintenance and improvement of soil quality in continuous cropping systems is critical to sustaining agricultural productivity and environmental quality for future generations. This review focuses on lessons learned from long-term continuous cropping experiments. Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the most often reported attribute from long-term studies and is chosen as the most important indicator of soil quality and agronomic sustainability because of its impact on other physical, chemical and biological indicators of soil quality. Long-term studies have consistently shown the benefit of manures, adequate fertilization, and crop rotation on maintaining agronomic productivity by increasing C inputs into the soil. However, even with crop rotation and manure additions, continuous cropping results in a decline in SOC, although the rate and magnitude of the decline is affected by cropping and tillage system, climate and soil. In the oldest of these studies, the influence of tillage on SOC and dependent soil quality indicators can only be inferred from rotation treatments which included ley rotations (with their reduced frequency of tillage). The impact of tillage per se on SOC and soil quality has only been tested in the ‘long-term’ for about 30 yrs, since the advent of conservation tillage techniques, and only in developed countries in temperate regions. Long-term conservation tillage studies have shown that, within climatic limits: Conservation tillage can sustain or actually increase SOC when coupled with intensive cropping systems; and the need for sound rotation practices in order to maintain agronomic productivity and economic sustainability is more critical in conservation tillage systems than conventional tillage systems. Long-term tillage studies are in their infancy. Preserving and improving these valuable resources is critical to our development of soil management practices for sustaining soil quality in continuous cropping systems.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Climate change impacts on groundwater recharge-uncertainty, shortcomings, and the way forward?
TL;DR: An integrated approach to assess the regional impacts of climate and socio-economic change on groundwater recharge from East Anglia, UK is described in this article, where many factors affect future groundwater recharge including changed precipitation and temperature regimes, coastal flooding, urbanization, woodland establishment and changes in cropping and rotations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Earthworms and management affect organic matter incorporation and microaggregate formation in agricultural soils
TL;DR: In this article, the impact of earthworm activity on soil macro-and microaggregation and soil organic matter incorporation in different farming systems was studied. And the results showed that earthworms can directly initiate the formation of microaggregates, which in turn affects the physical protection of SOM against microbial decay.
Journal ArticleDOI
Method for assessing impacts on life support functions (LSF) related to the use of ‘fertile land’ in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
TL;DR: Even though it does not fully consider all aspects of soil functioning, SOM has been often recognised as the best stand-alone indicator for soil quality, and is applicable to any agricultural or forestry LCA to fill an important gap in Life Cycle Impact Assessment of land use.
Journal ArticleDOI
Indicators to support environmental sustainability of bioenergy systems
Allen C. McBride,Virginia H. Dale,Latha M. Baskaran,Mark Downing,Laurence Eaton,Rebecca A. Efroymson,Charles T. Garten,Keith L. Kline,Henriette I. Jager,Patrick J. Mulholland,Esther S. Parish,Peter E. Schweizer,John M. E. Storey +12 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify 19 measurable indicators for soil quality, water quality and quantity, greenhouse gases, biodiversity, air quality, and productivity, building on existing knowledge and on national and international programs that are seeking ways to assess sustainable bioenergy.
Journal ArticleDOI
EUE (energy use efficiency) of cropping systems for a sustainable agriculture
TL;DR: In this article, the energy flows of a wheat-maize-soybean-grain rotation of three different cropping systems: (i) low-input integrated farming (LI), (ii) integrated farming following European Regulations (IFS), and (iii) conventional farming (CONV).
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Organic matter and water-stable aggregates in soils
Judith. Tisdall,J.M. Oades +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the effectiveness of various binding agents at different stages in the structural organization of aggregates is described and forms the basis of a model which illustrates the architecture of an aggregate.
Journal ArticleDOI
Analysis of factors controlling soil organic matter levels in Great Plains grasslands
TL;DR: In this article, a model of soil organic matter (SOM) quantity and composition was used to simulate steady-state organic matter levels for 24 grassland locations in the U.S. Great Plains.
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