Influence of Organic and Mineral Fertilizers on Soil Organic Carbon and Crop Productivity under Different Tillage Systems: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The intensive use of mineral (M) fertilizers may cause harm the environment via leaching or greenhouse gas emissions, destroy soil fertility as a consequence of loss of soil organic matter, and, due to their high price, they are economically unviable for producers. It is widely accepted that organic (O) fertilizers may deal with pressing challenges facing modern agriculture, even if farmers need to improve their knowledge for applying in fertilization programs. A meta-analysis approach has been adopted to evaluate the effects on soil organic carbon (SOC) and crop yield of O fertilizers, applied alone or in combination with mineral fertilizers (MO) under conventional (CT), reduced (RT), and no-tillage (NT) regimes. The analysis was performed in different climatic conditions, soil properties, crop species, and irrigation management. Organic fertilizers have a positive influence in increasing SOC compared with M (on average 12.9%), even if high values were observed under NT (20.6%). The results highlighted the need for flexible and environment-specific systems when considering organic fertilization subjected to different tillage regimes. Similarly, MO application showed a better crop yield response in CT and RT under coarse soils when compared with M fertilizer applied alone (on average 13.4 and 12.7%, respectively), while in medium-textured soils, CT and RT yielded better than NT under O fertilizers (9.5 and 11.2 vs. 2.5%, respectively). Among the crop species, legumes performed better when O fertilizers were adopted than M fertilizers (on average 15.2%), while among the other crop species, few differences were detected among the fertilization programs. Under irrigated systems, RT and NT led to higher productivity than CT, especially under MO treatments (on average 9.2 vs. 3.4%, respectively). The results highlighted the importance of the environmental and agronomical factors and how their understanding could affect the impact of these conservation farming practices on crop productivity to improve the sustainability of the farming system in a specific region.

Green chemistry routed sugar press mud for (2D) ZnO nanostructure fabrication, mineral fortification, and climate-resilient wheat crop productivity

“…This difference in T3 treatment with respect to control (T0), (T1), (T2), and (T4) treatment is reasonably due to the mineral mobilising role played by the increased soil colloidal carbon led by PM or its very pH moderating properties. This rationale appears applicable considering the various previous reports highlighting the role of soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil pH in nutrient mobilisation and crop productivity 15 , 30 – 34 . However, none of these reports have examined the mechanistic aspects of soil organic carbon-induced nutrient mobilisation in the soil plant continuum 35 .…”

Integrated analysis of potential microbial consortia, soil nutritional status, and agro-climatic datasets to modulate P nutrient uptake and yield effectiveness of wheat under climate change resilience

“…The increase in soil organic matter is the key factor in maintaining soil fertility and plant nutrient uptake ( Gerke, 2022 ). This can sustain agricultural productivity by restricting the use of chemical fertilizers ( Allam et al., 2022 ). Therefore, it could be more important to amend the soil with organic matter instead of seed pelleting to augment the soil with appropriate soil fertility.…”

Effects of Reduced Tillage on Dynamic Soil Properties and Winter Triticale Performance in Organic Farm at Wageningen, the Netherlands

“…Moreover, the decrease of SOM in CON might be due to high rate leaching and mineralization [29]. On the other hand, the accumulation of SOM on the soil surface was a result of the surface placement of crop residues and lack/low soil disturbance that retained residues isolated from the rest of the soil profile [30]. These results concur with what has been reported by many authors that the concentration of SOM is stratified in NIT and the concentration decreases with increase in soil depths [5] and decrease or increase in soil disturbance [12].…”