Yongcun Zhao, Meiyan Wang, Shuijin Hu, Xudong Zhang, Zhu Ouyang, Ganlin Zhang, Biao Huang, Shiwei Zhao, Jinshui Wu, Deti Xie, Bo Zhu, Dongsheng Yu, Xianzhang Pan, Shengxiang Xu, Xuezheng Shi
China's croplands have experienced drastic changes in management practices, such as fertilization, tillage, and residue treatments, since the 1980s. There is an ongoing debate about the impact of these changes on soil organic carbon (SOC) and its implications. Here we report results from an extensive study that provided direct evidence of cropland SOC sequestration in China. Based on the soil sampling locations recorded by the Second National Soil Survey of China in 1980, we collected 4,060 soil samples in 2011 from 58 counties that represent the typical cropping systems across China...
April 17, 2018: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America