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Straw mulching is not always combined with no-till during conservation tillage. Here we explored the effects of long-term straw mulching on soil attributes with soil depths under a no-till system. Compared to straw removal, straw mulching did various effects on soil properties at different depths, and the biggest difference occurred at the topsoil depth. Overall, straw mulch is highly recommended for use under the no-till system because of its benefits to soil fertility and bacterial abundance.

This study found that the influence of argan trees on soil quality in South Morocco is mostly limited to the area covered by the tree crown. However, the tree influences the bare soil outside the crown positively in specific directions because wind and water can move litter and soil particles from under the tree to the areas between the trees. These findings based on soil samples around argan trees could help structure reforestation measures.

In this manuscript, we describe changes in desert soil bacterial diversity and function when two ecosystem engineers, shrubs and ant nests, in an arid environment are present. The results show that bacterial activity increases when there are ecosystem engineers and that their impact is non-additive. This is one of a handful of studies that investigated the separate and combined effects of ecosystem engineers on soil bacterial communities investigating both composition and function.

As urban populations grow, soil sealing with impermeable surfaces will increase. At present there is limited knowledge on the effect of sealing on soil carbon and nutrients. We found that in general, sealing reduced soil carbon and nutrients, however, where there were additions of material due to human activity, soil carbon and nutrients were increased. This suggests there is a legacy soil carbon store in areas with an industrial past and highlights the influence of artefacts in urban soil.

Loss of agricultural land calls for preserving our most fertile soils. Abrupt reductions in soil pH and increases in NO₃− within continuous corn at the highest N rate, imply strong acidification and nitrification. Greater yields and return of corn residues in fertilized systems improved WAS and BD and decreased P and K, whereas SOM remains unchanged. Rotating with soybeans improved yields across N levels yet hindered the gains in WAS. Further research should focus on microbial nutrient cycling.

Storing C in subsurface soils can help mitigate climate change, but this requires a better understanding of subsurface C dynamics. We investigated changes in subsurface C storage after 25 years under a combination of compost, cover crops (WCC), and mineral fertilizer, and found a potential WCC – compost interaction. Pores from WCC roots facilitate subsurface C and nutrient transport, increasing C stocks and demonstrating the potential for subsurface carbon storage in tilled agricultural systems.

Transfer of organic carbon from topsoil to deeper horizons and to water table is little documented, especially in equatorial environments despite high primary productivity of the evergreen forest. Using column experiments with podzol soil and percolating solution sampled in an Amazonian podzol area, we showed how C-rich Bh horizon plays a major role on natural organic matter transfer and Si, Fe, Al mobility after a kaolinitic layer transition, thus giving insight in genesis of tropical podzol.

Land-use changes are an important anthropogenic perturbation that can cause soil degradation, but the impacts of land conversion from growing cereals to vegetables have received little attention. Using a combination of soil analyses from paired sites and data from farmers surveys, we found significant soil degradation in intensive vegetable cropping which converted by paddy rice-oilseed rape rotation in southwest China.This study may alert others to the potential land degradation in subtropics.

We use a holistic framework to analyze how agricultural policy in Germany affects the sustainability of soil management. We look at the adequacy of policy targets, objects (i.e. drivers of soil degradation), instruments and assumptions about farmers' behaviour, and the coherence among these four dimensions. We find deficits in each dimension, particularly object and instrument adequacy. Agricultural soil policy in Germany lacks depth and coherence, and the role of biomass demand is neglected.

Mineralogical combinations of aluminous clay and pedogenic Fe oxides revealed significant effects on soil structure and related OC storage. The mineralogical combination resulting in the largest aggregate stability do not better preserved OC during conversion of forests into croplands. Structural changes in the direction of smaller mean weight diameters do not cancel out the stabilizing effect of soil minerals.

We developed the Swiss mid-infrared spectral library and a statistical model collection across 4374 soil samples with reference measurements of 17 properties. Our library incorporates soil from 1094 grid locations and 71 long-term monitoring sites. This work confirms once again that nationwide spectral libraries with diverse soils can reliably feed information to fast chemical diagnosis. Our way of data-driven reduction of the library has accuracy potential for monitoring carbon at plot scale.

Freezing and thawing cycles are an important agent of soil structural transformation during the winter season in the mid-latitudes. This study shoows that it promotes a well-connected pore system, fragments dense soil clods, and hence increased the unsaturated conductivity by a factor of 3. The results are of importance for predicting the structure formation and hydraulic properties of soils in prospect of milder winters due to climate change and thus for farmers' seedbed preparation in spring.