Enhancing soil organic carbon sequestration through conservation tillage: a comprehensive mega-analysis

Abstract

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a critical component of global carbon cycling and a key regulator of soil CO₂ emission. However, the effects of agricultural activities, particularly tillage, on SOC sequestration are not fully understood. Here, we conducted a comprehensive mega-analysis of 24 individual meta-analyses to assess how conservation tillage practices, including no-till (NT), reduced tillage (RT), and mixed NT + RT, affect SOC sequestration. Overall, all conservation tillage types significantly increased SOC stocks, with RT showing the highest increase by 13.42% (effective size = 0.126), followed by NT 10.76% (0.102) and NT + RT 7.42% (0.071). Climate emerged as the dominant driver under NT, with the largest SOC increases in tropical and humid regions. Other influential factors included experimental duration, crop type, residue management, soil texture, pH, nitrogen fertilizer rate, and irrigation, all of which consistently enhanced SOC gains. SOC responses were strongest in surface layers (0–10 cm), in neutral and alkaline soils, and in coarse- to medium-textured soils. NT was especially effective in maize systems (15.57%, 0.145), the 0–10 cm soil layer (22.32%, 0.201), in neutral soils (12.87%, 0.121), and in alkaline soils (12.15%, 0.114). RT showed pronounced benefits in tropical climates, coarse and medium textured soils, and under nitrogen application and irrigation, with SOC increases up to 15.56% (0.145) in tropical regions, 18.90% (0.173) at a soil depth of 0–10 cm layer, 9.16% (0.087) in alkaline soils, 24.02% (0.215) in acidic soils, and 25.23% (0.225) in irrigated fields. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that conservation tillage substantially enhances SOC sequestration and that adopting context-specific conservation tillage practices can improve soil health while contributing to climate change mitigation.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

no-till / cropland / reduced tillage / response ratio / soil organic carbon

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