Estimation of soil organic carbon stock by fixed depth and equivalent soil mass methods in fine and coarse textured soils with cereal and grass based cropping history

The agricultural management of soil organic carbon (SOC) is highly important to build a climate-smart and eco-friendly agricultural system. For this reason, our study was conducted to test the hypothesis that the effect of different treatments consisting of soil textures and crop varieties on SOC stock has a major influence on any loss or accumulation of SOC storage. We also test the hypothesis that equivalent soil mass (ESM) is more consistent than fixed depth (FD) in estimating SOC content. In our study, the results were not found statistically significant but they showed minor differences in the SOC estimation. The difference was not clearly observed between ESM and FD methods. The influence of soil textures and crop varieties on SOC content was not significantly different. However, the cultivation of grass in fine-textured soils slightly increased the SOC stock compared with that in coarse-textured soils probably due to enhanced grass root growth and aggregation in fine-textured soils that protects soil organic matter from microbial oxidation