Soil carbon storage and stratification under different tillage systems in a semi-arid region
Changes in the agricultural management can potentially increase the accumulation rate of soil organic carbon (SOC), thereby sequestering CO₂ from the atmosphere. In a long-term experiment (1992-2008) we examined the effects of various tillage intensities: no-tillage (NT), minimum tillage with chisel plow (MT), and conventional tillage with mouldboard plow (CT), on the topsoil profile distribution (0-30cm) of SOC, on a semi-arid loamy soil from Central Spain. The crop sequence established was cheap pea (Cicer arietinun L.) cv. Inmaculada/barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) cv. Volley.