Soil management and crop rotation are key factors in controlling the accumulation of C and N in the soil profile, but their long-term effect remains poorly understood for deep soil layers, especially in subtropical conditions. Using a long-term experiment (26-years), this study aimed to evaluate the effect of different soil management systems associated with different winter cover crops on C and N accumulation in a very clayey (72 % clay) soil up to 1 m deep. Two tillage systems [...] ABSTRACT Soil management and crop rotation are key factors in controlling the accumulation of C and N in the soil profile, but their long-term effect remains poorly understood for deep soil layers, especially in subtropical conditions. Using a long-term experiment (26-years), this study aimed to evaluate the effect of different soil management systems associated with different winter cover crops on C and N accumulation in a very clayey (72 % clay) soil up to 1 m deep. Two tillage systems

Os sistemas integrados de produção agropecuária (SIPA) sob plantio direto podem sem uma ferramenta efetiva para promover o acúmulo de carbono orgânico do solo (CO). No entanto, ainda não está claro como o manejo da pastagem afeta o acúmulo de CO. Nesse trabalho, avaliamos o efeito de intensidades de pastejo (10, 20, 30 e 40 cm de altura de pasto e sem pastejo) no CO e nos coeficientes da dinâmica da matéria orgânica e usá-los na simulação do sequestro de CO na camada de solo de 0-20 cm. O estudo foi conduzido em um Latossolo Vermelho Distroférrico típico no sul do Brasil manejado em um sistema integrado de produção de soja-bovinos de corte, em plantio direto, durante 13 anos. As taxas de sequestro de CO variaram entre 0,097 na altura de manejo de pasto de 10 cm até 0,308 Mg ha-1 ano-1 na de 40 cm, respectivamente. As simulações revelam um maior potencial de sequestrar C no solo com intensidade de pastejo moderada (30 cm) ou baixa (40 cm). Enquanto os SIPA em plantio direto levam a um balanço positivo de carbono independentemente da intensidade de pastejo, a simulação da evolução temporal dos estoques de COT revela um maior potencial de acumular CO nos tratamentos com as menores intensidades de pastejo do que nos mais intensivos.

Context: Knowledge of the impacts of no-tillage and cover cropping on carbon accumulation and stabilisation in highly weathered agricultural soils of subtropical regions is scant. We hypothesised that implementation of no-tillage coupled with high-quality legume residues in highly weathered agricultural soils would result in high carbon accumulation rates, mainly as microbe- and plant-derived materials in fine mineral–organic complexes. Aims and methods: We sampled soil profiles down to 100 cm in a long-term field experiment and used density and particle size fractionation in combination with carbohydrate analyses to compare the effect of conventional tillage vs no-tillage, combined or not with legume cover cropping, and combined or not with mineral nitrogen fertilisation. Key results: Both no-tillage and legume cover crops favoured the accumulation and enrichment in plant-derived carbohydrates in the surface soil layer, due to the accumulation of plant residues. The ratio of microbe- to plant-derived carbohydrates increased with soil depth indicating that the soil carbon (C) was more microbially processed than at the surface. Conservation management systems also increased soil C at depth and this was most visible in the clay fraction. The additional clay-size C accumulating at depth under conservation treatments was of both microbial and plant origin. Conclusions: Our results support the hypothesis that mineral-associated C is composed of both plant and microbial residues and is positively influenced by conservation management practices. Implications: Our results demonstrate that no-till and legume cover cropping are efficient practises to foster C accumulation and stabilisation in heavily weathered agricultural soil profiles in a subtropical climate.

Long-term carbon (C) stabilisation in tropical and subtropical soils under no-tillage (NT) rests on the formation of mineral–organic associations (MOAs) that can be enriched with microbial metabolites. In this work, we assessed the role of long-term tillage and cropping systems and mineral N fertilisation in enriching MOAs with microbial metabolites in a subtropical soil. For this purpose, we sampled a sandy clay loam Acrisol up to 1 m depth involved in an ongoing 30-year-old experiment under two different tillage systems (conventional tillage and NT) in the presence and absence of legume cover crops and mineral nitrogen (N) fertilisation. The soil samples were subjected to particle size fractionation and n-alkane analysis. The NT and the presence of legume cover crops in the surface soil layer (0-5 cm) increased the abundance of plant-derived lipids (i.e. compounds with n-alkane chains of 25-33 C atoms) in the whole soil. Microbial-derived lipids (i.e. compounds with shorter n-alkane chains (15-24 C atoms)) were more abundant in the clay fraction of the surface (0-5 cm) and sub-surface soil layers (20-30 and 75-100 cm) in NT soil receiving high-quality residues of legume cover crops. However, N fertilisation decreased the abundance of microbial-derived lipids in the clay fraction of the 0-5 and 20-30 cm soil layers. Our findings highlight the role of N-rich residues of legume cover crops, but not of mineral N fertilisation, in the long-term stabilisation of C in MOAs in NT soils through the action of microbial residues.