This study set out to evaluate crop rotation diversity, perenniality, carbon inputs, and carbon input quality as predictors of soil organic carbon concentration and aggregate size.
Including a perennial forage such as alfalfa, perennializing rotations by including winter cereals and cover crops, and limiting soybean frequency promotes soil aggregation and carbon sequestration more so than optimizing crop rotation diversity. Quality of structural plant inputs does not explain differences in C stabilization efficiency, possibly due to overriding influence of living root inputs.
Using the long-term rotation experiment near Elora, ON (established 1980) to study the impacts of tillage and diversity of crop
ACTIVE
Diverse crop rotations – those with a greater variety of crops over time – have been recently promoted as a
University of Guelph
50 Stone Road East
Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1
