Monitoring changes in soil organic carbon pools, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur under different agricultural management practices in the tropics

Abstract

Soil organic matter not only affects sustainability of agricultural ecosystems, but also extremely important in maintaining overall quality of environment as soil contains a significant part of global carbon stock. Hence, we attempted to assess the influence of different tillage and nutrient management practices on various stabilized and active soil organic carbon pools, and their contribution to the extractable nitrogen phosphorus and sulfur. Our study confined to the assessment of impact of agricultural management practices on the soil organic carbon pools and extractable nutrients under three important cropping systems, viz. soybean-wheat, maize-wheat, and rice-wheat. Results indicated that there was marginal improvement in Walkley and Black content in soil under integrated and organic nutrient management treatments in soybean-wheat, maize-wheat, and rice-wheat after completion of four cropping cycles. Improvement in stabilized pools of soil organic carbon (SOC) was not proportional to the applied amount of organic manures. While, labile pools of SOC were increased with the increase in amount of added manures. Apparently, green manure (Sesbania) was more effective in enhancing the lability of SOC as compared to farmyard manure and crop residues. The KMnO(4)-oxidizable SOC proved to be more sensitive and consistent as an index of labile pool of SOC compared to microbial biomass carbon. Under different cropping sequences, labile fractions of soil organic carbon exerted consistent positive effect on the extractable nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur in soil.