Divergence in physical, chemical, and biological soil properties caused by different long-term bare fallow management and natural succession

作者：Steffen Schlüter, Mengqi Wu, Maxime Phalempin, Lena Philipp, Еvgenia Blagodatskaya, Thomas Reitz, Carsten Simon, Oliver J. Lechtenfeld, Hans J. Vogel, Martin Schädler, Ines Merbach · 发表于：Geoderma · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117361 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Soil erosion and sediment transport、Peatlands and Wetlands Ecology

The absence of plants has profound effects on many ecosystem functions of soil. Long-term bare fallow trials are valuable tools for studying the dynamics in soil carbon decline and associated soil degradation. However, it is challenging to disentangle the contribution of missing organic inputs from the frequent physical disturbance caused by soil tillage or herbicide application to keep the soil free from vegetation. In this study, we evaluate a unique long-term experiment (36 years) in which a bare fallow was established using different methods: i) mechanically through soil tillage, ii) chemically with herbicides, and iii) a combination of both methods. The aim was to separately assess the effects of tillage and herbicide application on various soil properties. Additionally, the bare fallow treatments were compared with natural succession to evaluate the effect of missing organic inputs. We monitored the annual dynamics of carbon and nitrogen contents in the topsoil (0–30 cm) and subsoil (30–60 cm). In addition, we analyzed the shallow topsoil (5–10 cm) comprehensively by integrating physical properties (microstructure and hydraulic properties), chemical properties and biological properties. All bare fallows were declining in carbon contents at very similar rates while physical disturbance by conventional tillage did not accelerate this effect. In both soil depths of all bare fallows a fast decline in C content during the first ten years was followed by a more gradual or no ...