in a semiarid region of central iran, effects of parent materials, physiography and landscape position, land use, andmanagement practices on association of organic carbon with secondary (aggregates) particles and aggregate stability canhave important consequences in terms of carbon sequestration and budgeting, deciding on the proper land use strategy andsuitable soil conservation practices. it ...

lack of sufficient information on conservation tillage systems leads to the dominating use of conventional tillage practice in most parts of iran. testing other management practices may help in decision making regarding the types of tillage systems that reduce soil deterioration. a three- years field experiment was conducted to study the effects of conventional (ct), reduced (rt) and no-till (n...

Free air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiments in aggrading forests and plantations have demonstrated significant increases in net primary production (NPP) and C storage in forest vegetation. The extra C uptake may also be stored in forest floor litter and in forest soil. After five years of FACE treatment at the EuroFACE short rotation poplar plantation, the increase of total soil C% was larger un...

Glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP), a widespread glycoprotein produced by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), is crucial for ecosystem functioning and ecological restoration. In the present study, an investigation was conducted to comprehensively analyze the effects of heavy metal (HM) contamination on AMF status, soil properties, aggregate distribution and stability, and their correlations a...

Long-term tillage negatively affects soil aggregation, but little is known about the short-term effects of tillage. We investigated the effects of intensive tillage (moldboard plowing) and conservation tillage (chisel plowing) on aggregate breakage during tillage in a long-term study located in the semiarid Ebro river valley (NE Spain). The type of tillage resulted in different soil aggregate d...

Tillage modifies the soil structure to create conditions favorable for plant growth. However, the resulting loose structure is susceptible to collapse by internal capillary forces and external compactive stresses with concurrent changes in soil hydraulic properties. Presently, limited understanding of these complex processes often leads to consideration of the soil plow-layer as a static porous...

To test direct and indirect effects of glomalin, mycorrhizal hyphae, and roots on aggregate stability, perspex pots separated by 37-μm nylon mesh in the middle were used to form root-free hyphae and root/hyphae chambers, where trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata) seedlings were colonized by Funneliformis mosseae or Paraglomus occultum in the root/hyphae chamber. Both fungal species induced s...

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of biochar amendment on soil aggregate formation and stability, and soil hydraulic properties. Biochar produced from dairy manure was added to two different soils (a silty clay and a sandy loam soil) at a ratio of 2% (w/w in dry weight basis). Incubation experiments were conducted within a 90-d period with the soils (the controls) and the soi...