Implications of Rock Fragments for Soil Quality Evaluation: Assessing Changes in a Gravelly Irrigated Soil Following No Till Adoption
2017
Arias, N | Orcaray, L. | Bescansa, P. | Enrique, A | Virto, I.
Stony soils are increasingly being converted to intensive agricultural use, including irrigation. Conservation tillage can be adopted in these soils for soil protection and quality enhancement, but its assessment can be troublesome. Crop yields and the implications of rock fragments for soil quality indicators and for calculating C and N stocks were monitored under conventional and no-tillage in an experimental field recently converted to irrigation, on a soil with 40% rock fragments. Gains of up to 10 Mg C ha⁻¹ were observed in the tilled layer (0–30 cm) only with two years of irrigation, with no differences between treatments, although the vertical distribution of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) was affected by the correction of the rock fragment content. The labile organic fraction stood as a sensitive indicator to management changes, even after rock fragment correction. Different methodologies used for rock fragment correction led to overestimations of 20% of organic C stocks.
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