Special Issue "Soil Science in Conservation Agricultural Systems"

Special Issue Information: Global soil health is deteriorating due to the direct and indirect effects of climate change, increasing population and resource degradation. Conservation agriculture (CA) is increasingly promoted around the world as an alternative strategy to address soil degradation resulting from organic matter and nutrient content depletion, sustain crop productivity with lower production costs and reduce environmental footprints (Kassam et al. 2009). “Conservation agriculture” refers to a set of principles rooted in sound science. These principles include: (1) causing minimum disturbance to the soil surface through no- or minimum-tillage; (2) keeping the soil surface covered with crop residues, such as mulch and cover crops; and (3) adopting crop sequences/rotations in appropriate spatial and temporal scales. Adoption of CA has the potential to increase soil organic carbon stocks through sequestration of atmospheric carbon, thus helping to curb global warming. Experiences from several locations have shown that adoption of conservation tillage effects soil health (mainly, C and N accumulation, soil aggregation, water retention, nutrient cycling, and soil enzymes), but CA is not simply conservation tillage (Reicoskky, 2015). To fully understand the impact of CA, which also uses fewer resources and can therefore be more carbon efficient, an in-depth, systematic review on soil processes, soil quality parameters, and dynamics of plant nutrients under diverse agro-ecosystems is needed. Thus, this Special Issue will assess the sustainability of CA technologies for maintaining or increasing crop productivity, improving soil health including plant available water supplies, and reducing potential negative environmental quality impacts (i.e., erosion, leaching and runoff) on arable land. Papers are invited on these aspects from all over the globe. The selected papers for this Special Issue were subject to a peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications. Dr. Ranjan Bhattacharyya Prof. Dr. Michael A. Fullen Guest Editor