Assessment of Carbon Pools and Stability of Soil Aggregates in Inceptisols of Indo-Gangetic Plains as Influenced by Seven-Year Continuous Tillage Practices Under Maize-Based Cropping System

Intensive tillage practices have degraded soil physical quality and reduced soil organic carbon (SOC) content. As a result, crop productivity has decreased over time, highlighting the need for conservation practices. For this, a long-term field experiment at Research Farm, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour dominated by Inceptisols in Indo-Gangetic plains of Bihar was conducted to study the effect of three tillage practices, that is, zero tillage (ZT), permanent raised bed (PB) and conventional tillage (CT) and three cropping system namely maize-maize, maize-wheat and maize-chickpea on different pools of carbon and soil aggregation. After 7 years, it was observed that conservation tillage practices (ZT and PB) had significant positive effect on total soil organic carbon, active pools of carbon and percentage distribution of aggregates. The total organic carbon (TOC) and mean weight diameter (MWD) was found highest under PB (8.62 g kg(-1) and 1.70 mm, respectively) which was at par with ZT (8.50 g kg(-1) and 1.68 mm, respectively) and the lowest in CT (7.89 g kg(-1) and 1.37 mm, respectively) while, among cropping systems, maize-chickpea system recorded significantly higher TOC and MWD (8.48 g kg(-1) and 1.67 mm, respectively). Carbon Management Index (CMI) was also found higher under ZT (152) and maize-chickpea system (149). As a result of our study, it was observed that combining conservation practices (PB and ZT) with appropriate crop rotation (maize-chickpea) appears to be the best option for restoring and improving the health of light-textured Inceptisols by increasing soil organic matter (SOM) and improving soil physical properties.