Impacts of tillage on soil properties and interactions with drainage when reseeding permanent pasture

Abstract

Background: Grassland reseeding typically requires intensive tillage. This disrupts soil nutrient dynamics, especially under varying drainage conditions.

Methods: This study evaluated the combined effects of tillage legacy, drainage and soil depth on key soil properties within a long-term grassland experiment. Treatments compared two no-tillage durations (5 years of no tillage, 5YNT; 30 years of no tillage, 30YNT), two drainage systems (drained and undrained) and two depths (0-10 and 10-30 cm) following reseeding. Total carbon (TC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and pH were measured.

Results: Significant three-way interactions were detected for all variables. At 0-10 cm, undrained 30YNT plots showed 69% greater TC and 66.9% higher TP than the lowest values recorded in 5YNT × drained combinations at 10-30 cm. TN followed a similar pattern, with substantial enrichment under long-term no-tillage. Reseeding reduced TC, TN and TP within 5 years, particularly in surface soils, with the largest proportional losses in undrained plots where nutrient concentrations had been high prior to tillage.

Conclusions: Findings highlight the importance of conserving long-term no-tillage systems to enhance nutrient retention and promote sustainable grassland productivity. Conventional tillage of nutrient-rich pastures should be avoided to prevent major nutrient losses.

Keywords

drained soils / no tillage / pH / total carbon / total nitrogen / total phosphorus / undrained soils

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2026 The Author(s). Grassland Research published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Chinese Grassland Society and Lanzhou University.