Mulch application as the overarching factor  explaining increase in soil organic carbon  stocks under conservation agriculture in two  8-year-old experiments in Zimbabwe

Shumba, Armwell; Chikowo, Regis; Thierfelder, Christian; Corbeels, Marc; Six, Johan; Cardinael, Rémi

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-151-2024

Articles | Volume 10, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-151-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-151-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 1

Original research article

|

20 Feb 2024

Original research article |

| 20 Feb 2024

Mulch application as the overarching factor explaining increase in soil organic carbon stocks under conservation agriculture in two 8-year-old experiments in Zimbabwe

Armwell Shumba, Regis Chikowo, Christian Thierfelder, Marc Corbeels, Johan Six, and Rémi Cardinael

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-151-2024-supplement

Data sets

Data for "Mulch application as the overarching factor explaining increase in soil organic carbon stocks under conservation agriculture in two 8-year-old experiments in Zimbabwe" Armwell Shumba et al. https://doi.org/10.18167/DVN1/VPOCHN

Short summary

Conservation agriculture (CA), combining reduced or no tillage, permanent soil cover, and improved rotations, is often promoted as a climate-smart practice. However, our knowledge of the impact of CA on top- and subsoil soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in the low-input cropping systems of sub-Saharan Africa is rather limited. Using two long-term experimental sites with different soil types, we found that mulch could increase top SOC stocks, but no tillage alone had a slightly negative impact.