Digging deeper: assessing soil quality in a diversity of conservation agriculture practices
Conservation Agriculture (CA) aims to enable sustainable crop production and improve soil quality. However, the three CA principles can be implemented in very different ways. Is soil quality consistent across all CA fields?
Presentation
The paper (in English) is avalaible in Open Access.
Method
We assessed soil quality in four Walloon CA-types, using three indicators:
- Soil structural stability, measured by the QuantiSlakeTest,
- SOC:Clay ratio, reflecting soil organic status and soil structural quality resilience, and
- Labile carbon content, used as a proxy for soil biological activity.
Main results
Our results show that temporary grasslands are a key driver of soil quality, even when occasional plowing is used to terminate them. In contrast, CA-type with crop sequences dominated by industrial crops (e.g. potato, sugar beet) exhibit lower soil structural stability, even under strict no-till management.
Key messages
- Farming systems must be evaluated as a whole, considering the diversity of practices
- Temporary grasslands enhance SOC content and quality, and ultimately, soil structural stability
- Industrial crops hinder CA implementation and reduce soil quality outcomes
- No-till alone does not guarantee high soil quality
- Organic Conservation Agriculture systems can reach higher soil quality outcomes when rotations include forage breaks and limited industrial crops
- We must move beyond simplistic narratives like “no-till is always good” or “tillage is always bad”. Reality lies in diversity.
