Impact of Cover Crop Monocultures and Mixtures on Organic Carbon Contents of Soil Aggregates

Cover crops are considered an integral component of agroecosystems because their positive impacts on biotic and abiotic indicators soil health. At present, we know little about the impact cover crop types diversity organic carbon (OC) contents different aggregate-size classes. In this study, investigated effect plant OC aggregates, such as macro- (<2000–500 μm), meso- (<500–250 micro-aggregates (<250 μm). Our experiment included a total 12 experimental treatments in triplicate; six monoculture chickling vetch (Vicia villosa), crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum), hairy field peas (Pisum sativum), oilseed radish (Raphanus sativus), mighty mustard (Brassica juncea), three- six-species mixture treatments, including one unplanted control treatment. We performed usingdeep pots that contained collected from corn-soybean rotation field. vegetative maturity plants (about 70 days), took samples, classes were separated by dry sieving. hypothesized type will improve found species richness weakly positively increased macro-aggregates (p = 0.056), whereas other did not respond to gradient. Similarly, macroaggregates varied significantly 0.013) under though neither nor showed higher than treatment short-term experiment. Interestingly, inclusion decreased micro-aggregates, respectively. Moreover, correlation between shoot biomass macroaggregates. Overall, our results suggest species-rich rather -poor communities may macroaggregates, which constitute major portion systems, also important functions.