Abstract
The impact of conservation tillage, crop rotation, and cover cropping on soil‐quality indicators was evaluated in a long‐term experiment for cotton. Compared to conventional‐tillage cotton, other treatments had 3.4 to 7.7 Mg ha−1 more carbon (C) over all soil depths. The particulate organic matter C (POMc) accounts for 29 to 48 and 16 to 22% of soil organic C (SOC) for the 0‐ to 3‐and 3‐ to 6‐cm depths, respectively. Tillage had a strongth influence on POMc within the 0‐ to 3‐cm depth, but cropping intensity and cover crop did not affect POMc. A large stratification for microbial biomass was observed varing from 221 to 434 and 63 to 110 mg kg−1 within depth of 0–3 and 12–24 cm respectively. The microbial biomass is a more sensitive indicator (compared to SOC) of management impacts, showing clear effect of tillage, rotation, and cropping intensity. The no‐tillage cotton double‐cropped wheat/soybean system that combined high cropping intensity and crop rotation provided the best soil quality.
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