Mechanisms of Soil Aggregates Stability in Purple Paddy Soil under Conservation Tillage of Sichuan Basin, China

Abstract: Ridge culture is a special conservation tillage method, but the long-term influence of this tillage system on soil aggregate-size stability in paddy fields is largely unknown in southwest of china. The objectives of this paper are to evaluate soil aggregates stability and to determine the relationship between SOC and soil aggregate stability.Soil samples at 0-20 cm layer were adopted from a long-term (16 yr) field experiment including conventional tillage: plain culture, summer rice crop and winter upland crop under drained conditions (PUR-r), and conservation tillage: ridge culture without tillage, summer rice and winter fallow with floodwater layer annually (NTR-f), and winter upland crop under drained conditions (NTR-r), and wide ridge culture without tillage, summer rice crop and winter upland crop under conditions (NTRw-r), respectively. The determination of aggregate-size stability distribution involves the assumptions that soil aggregates can be categorized in terms of their size and water stability (slaking resistance). Experimentally this procedure involves the slaked and capillarywetted pretreatments; and a subsequent slaking treatment of aggregates >0.250 mm in size. WSMA and NMWD were applied to simulate the breakdown mechanisms of aggregates for studying soil stability based on aggregate resistance to slaking in paddy soil. The results showed that the amount of aggregates-size was greatly observed in the fraction of 2~6.72 mm under ridge culture in paddy soil (more than 50%) under slaking and capillary-wetting pretreatment. The proportion of soil macro-aggregates (>0.25 mm) in conservation tillage was greatly higher than that in conventional tillage under subsequent slaking treatment. Minimal differences of aggregate stability between slaking and wetting were observed, while significant differences were found between ridge culture and plain culture. The aggregates stability under slaking treatment ranked in the order of NTR-r>NTRw-r>NTR-f>PUR-r, while under wetting was NTRw-r>NTR-r>NTR-f>PUR-r, respectively. There was a positive correlation between the aggregates stability and SOC concentrations under wetting, and low correlation was observed under slaking pretreatment. Soil exposure with tillage and lack of rice/rape-seed stubble inputs caused declines in aggregation and organic carbon, both of which make soil susceptible to water erosion. Adoption of ridge culture with no-tillage integrated with crop rotation and stubble mulch significantly alter soil organic concentration, suggesting it was a valuable conservation practice for soil aggregation and soil organic carbon sequestration on paddy soil.