Changes in Labile Fractions of Soil Organic Matter During the Conversion to Organic Farming
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Changes in Labile Fractions of Soil Organic Matter During the Conversion to Organic Farming H. Abdelrahman 1,2 & C. Cocozza 3
&
D. C. Olk 4 & D. Ventrella 5 & F. Montemurro 5 & T. Miano 3
Received: 13 May 2019 / Accepted: 27 January 2020 # Sociedad Chilena de la Ciencia del Suelo 2020
Abstract Organic farming can overcome the environmental consequences of intensive conventional farming. The objective of the work was to investigate the changes in labile soil organic matter (SOM) fractions during the conversion from conventional to organic farming in two Italian sites, namely Foggia (FG) and Metaponto (MT), which differed mainly in initial soil organic carbon (SOC) content. Fields were cultivated with lentil and wheat in rotation and treated with either compost or nitrogen or phosphorus (N/P) fertilizers in three field replicates. The SOM was sequentially fractionated into light fraction (LF), particulate organic matter (POM), and mobile humic acid (MHA) fraction. Isolated fractions were quantified and analyzed for C and N contents. Although total SOC responded to the fertilization treatments, the LF and POM fractions were yet more responsive. The MHA represented on average of 15% of SOC at both sites; however, the LF represented only 5–6% of the total SOC but was the most responsive to changes in soil management. Compost application contributed significantly greater quantities of LF, POM, and MHA than did the N/P fertilizers application. The initial SOC content can play an important role in determining the impacts of introducing organic farming practices on SOM fractions. Although both sites had an initial low SOC content, the MT site, with a lower SOC content, showed a substantial fractional C increment as compared to the FG site. Keywords Light fraction . Particulate organic matter . Mobile humic acids . Compost . Crop rotation
1 Introduction Conventional farming practices have increased food production to support increasing human demands (Zinati 2002) Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s42729-020-00189-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * C. Cocozza [email protected] 1
Soil Science Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza 12613, Egypt
2
Faculty of Organic Agriculture, Heliopolis University for Sustainable Development, Cairo, Egypt
3
Dipartimento di Scienze del Suolo, della Pianta e degli Alimenti, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”, 70126 Bari, Italy
4
National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, USDA– ARS, Ames, IA 50011, USA
5
Centro di ricerca Agricoltura e Ambiente (CREA-AA), Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA), 70125 Bari, Italy
although, most of the time, they have shown excessive use of energy and agrochemicals, large water consumption and greenhouse gases emissions, and loss of soil fertility and productivity (Gomiero et al. 2011). In contrast, organic agriculture is a production system t
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