Soil health tradeoffs may be minimal in phosphorus-enriched Coastal Plain soils
Date
2023-03-31
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Agricultural & Environmental Letters
Abstract
Soil health practices can improve soil conditions and provide ecosystem services, but increased risk of phosphorus (P) loss can be an unintended consequence. We investigated conservation tillage and cover crops effects on soil P stratification, P accumulation at depth, and soil aggregation for sandy Coastal Plain soils from the Mid-Atlantic United States soil cores from 10 agricultural fields with 0–15 years of conservation tillage or cover cropping were analyzed for Mehlich-3 P and dry aggregate stability. We found no evidence that conservation tillage or cover cropping caused P stratification or accumulation in study fields that were already enriched with P prior to soil health implementation. Annual particulate, dissolved runoff, and leachate P loads decreased when estimated using the North Carolina Phosphorus Loss Assessment Tool assuming no-till and cover crops (soil health) compared to conventional till and winter fallow (conventional). We suggest that soil health practices are unlikely to exacerbate P losses from high P Coastal Plain soils beyond their initial risk profile.
Core Ideas:
- Soil health practices may increase the risk of surface and subsurface phosphorus (P) loss in P-enriched soils.
- Soil P stratification in 10 fields with and without soil health practices were compared.
- There is no evidence that soil health practices increased the risk for dissolved soil P losses.
- Soil health practices may reduce P loads in fields with significant sources of dissolved P.
Abbreviations:
DP
dissolved phosphorus
NC-PLAT
North Carolina Phosphorus Loss Assessment Tool
PP
particulate phosphorus
Description
This article was originally published in Agricultural & Environmental Letters. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20101. © 2023 The Authors. Agricultural & Environmental Letters published byWiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.
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Citation
Mosesso, L. R., & Shober, A. L. (2023). Soil health tradeoffs may be minimal in phosphorus-enriched Coastal Plain soils. Agricultural & Environmental Letters, 8, e20101. https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20101