ARS | Publication request: CHANGES IN SOIL CHARACTERISTICS AS INFLUENCED BY DIFFERING LONG-TERM TILLAGE PRACTICES

Submitted to: Agronomy Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: August 15, 1995
Publication Date: N/A

Technical Abstract: Long-term (since 1979) conservation and conventional tillage plots in the Coastal Plain of SC have been maintained in order to evaluate the effects of contrasting tillage on organic carbon (OC) dynamics, soil fertility levels, and herbicide sorption potentials. Each tillage treatment is replicated 10 times and planted with corn, wheat, soybean or cotton. Nitrogen and OC have been measured each year, and more detailed chemical characterizations of the surface 0- to 15-cm soil layer and by 5-cm increments are conducted (about every 5 years). Dramatic soil OC content increases in the surface 0- to 5-cm depth of the conservation tillage plots were found, while soil OC contents in conventional tillage plots changed very little. Higher soil OC contents in the surface zone of conservation tillage plots were implicated in causing higher atrazine and fluometuron sorption coefficients when compared to values at similar depths in conventional tillage plots.