Abstract
Intensive arable cropping depletes soil organic carbon and earthworms, leading to loss of macropores, and impaired hydrological functioning, constraining crop yields and exacerbating impacts of droughts and floods that are increasing with climate change. Grass and legume mixes traditionally grown in arable rotations (leys), are widely considered to regenerate soil functions, but there is surprisingly limited evidence of their effects on soil properties, resilience to rainfall extremes, and crop yields. Using topsoil monoliths taken from four intensively cropped arable fields, 19 month-old grass-clover ley strips in these fields, and from 3 adjacent permanent grasslands, effects on soil properties, and wheat yield in response to four-weeks of flood, drought, or ambient rain, during the stem elongation period were evaluated. Compared to arable soil, leys increased earthworm numbers, infiltration rates, macropore flow and saturated hydraulic conductivity, and reduced compaction (bulk density) resulting in improved wheat yields by 42–95 % under flood and ambient conditions. The leys showed incomplete recovery compared to permanent grassland soil, with modest gains in soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, water-holding capacity, and grain yield under drought, that were not significantly different (P > 0.05) to the arable controls. Overall, grass-clover leys regenerate earthworm populations and reverse structural degradation of intensively cultivated arable soil, facilitating adoption of no-tillage cropping to break out of the cycle of tillage-driven soil degradation. The substantial improvements in hydrological functioning by leys will help to deliver reduced flood and water pollution risks, potentially justifying payments for these ecosystem services, especially as over longer periods, leys increase soil carbon sequestration.
Highlights
Achieving sustainable soil management to meet increasing human demands from ecosystem services including food, fibre and fuel, carbon sequestration, clean water, biodiversity and flood mitigation (Brevik et al, 2018) presents a formidable challenge that is increasingly exacerbated by climate change (IPCC, 2019)
In much of Europe, North Africa and Asia, farmers have specialised in growing cereals in short rotations, with a small number of annual break crops, but have experienced plateauing or falling yields associated with soil degradation, especially declines in soil organic carbon (SOC) (Ball et al, 2005; Squire et al, 2015; Ghosh et al, 2019; Yigezu et al, 2019)
Our findings reveal a set of important soil quality indicators that can quickly recover on arable to ley conversion, including earthworm numbers and biomass, surface soil infiltration rates, macropore flow rates, surface soil bulk density and wheat crop yields
Summary
Achieving sustainable soil management to meet increasing human demands from ecosystem services including food, fibre and fuel, carbon sequestration, clean water, biodiversity and flood mitigation (Brevik et al, 2018) presents a formidable challenge that is increasingly exacerbated by climate change (IPCC, 2019). Arable soils are highly vulnerable to compaction as, for example in England, average SOC concentrations have fallen to 2.5 %, with about 50 % of silt and clay soils reported 15 years ago, to hold less than 1.3 % SOC (King et al, 2005). They are likely to have declined further due to ongoing continual annual cropping in short rotations (Knight et al, 2012) and widespread use of intensive cultivation (Townsend et al, 2016)
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