Articles | Volume 5, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-5-15-2019
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-5-15-2019
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Original research article
| 
15 Jan 2019
Original research article |
| 15 Jan 2019
| 15 Jan 2019
Global meta-analysis of the relationship between soil organic matter and crop yields
Emily E. Oldfield
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, 370
Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
Mark A. Bradford
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, 370
Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
Stephen A. Wood
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, 370
Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA 22201, USA
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Rosa M. Poch, Lucia H. C. dos Anjos, Rafla Attia, Megan Balks, Adalberto Benavides-Mendoza, Martha M. Bolaños-Benavides, Costanza Calzolari, Lydia M. Chabala, Peter C. de Ruiter, Samuel Francke-Campaña, Fernando García Préchac, Ellen R. Graber, Siosiua Halavatau, Kutaiba M. Hassan, Edmond Hien, Ke Jin, Mohammad Khan, Maria Konyushkova, David A. Lobb, Matshwene E. Moshia, Jun Murase, Generose Nziguheba, Ashok K. Patra, Gary Pierzynski, Natalia Rodríguez Eugenio, and Ronald Vargas Rojas
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Humanity depends on the existence of healthy soils, both for the production of food and for ensuring a healthy, biodiverse environment. In the face of global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, a sustainable soil management strategy is essential to ensure food security based on more diverse, locally oriented, and resilient food production systems through improving access to land, sound land use planning, sustainable soil management, enhanced research, and investment in education and extension.
Antonello Bonfante, Angelo Basile, and Johan Bouma
SOIL, 6, 453–466, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-6-453-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-6-453-2020, 2020
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Soil health is an important term in the international policy arena when considering soil contributions to sustainable development. We propose a measurement method, lacking so far, and explore differences within the term soil quality. The latter describes the inherent properties of soils, while soil health focuses on actual health. The procedure is illustrated for three Italian soil types, also showing the effects of climate change, demonstrating that each soil is significantly different.
Peter S. Cornish, Ashok Kumar, and Sudipta Das
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We evaluated soil fertility in seven watersheds on the East India Plateau, finding that soils are acid and infertile, with low chemical fertiliser use, and organic nutrient recycling is insufficient to maintain soil fertility. This leads to inefficient rainfall use and low yields. Fertiliser rates need to increase greatly, notably in P and K. This will challenge risk-averse subsistence farmers. Field-specific fertiliser regimes are needed despite consistent fertility trends along toposequences.
Antonello Bonfante, Fabio Terribile, and Johan Bouma
SOIL, 5, 1–14, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-5-1-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-5-1-2019, 2019
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This study is restricted to soil physical aspects of soil quality and health with the objective to define procedures with worldwide rather than only regional applicability, reflecting modern developments in soil physical research and focusing on important questions regarding possible effects of soil degradation and climate change.
Ariane Krause, Thomas Nehls, Eckhard George, and Martin Kaupenjohann
SOIL, 2, 147–162, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-2-147-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-2-147-2016, 2016
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In a field experiment in Tanzania, we used substrates from local projects as soil amenders for intercropping relevant local crops, aiming to advance the practical application of known principles for smallholder agriculture in SSA, i.e. biochar and biogas application and EcoSan practices. We studied the short-term effects on crop productivity, plant nutrition and soil properties. By mitigating P scarcity and acidification, yields were increased by up to 400 % compared to the control.
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Short summary
In this paper, we quantify the global-level relationship between soil organic matter and crop yield. We find that greater concentrations of soil organic matter are associated with greater yields and that increases in yields saturate around 2 % SOC. Using the relationship that we generate, we then provide an estimate of the potential for soil organic matter management to reduce global yield gaps for two of the most important staple crops (maize and wheat) grown worldwide.
In this paper, we quantify the global-level relationship between soil organic matter and crop...
