Soil carbon and nitrogen changes following root-plowing of rangeland
Issue Date
1999-11-01Keywords
Nassella leucotrichaSporobolus asper
Nassella
Bothriochloa saccharoides
plowing
soil organic matter
Bothriochloa
Sporobolus
soil density
Bouteloua curtipendula
Buchloe dactyloides
grassland improvement
Prosopis
brush control
nitrogen content
Texas
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Teague, W. R., Foy, J. K., Cross, B. T., & Dowhower, S. L. (1999). Soil carbon and nitrogen changes following root-plowing of rangeland. Journal of Range Management, 52(6), 666-670.Publisher
Society for Range ManagementJournal
Journal of Range ManagementDOI
10.2307/4003639Additional Links
https://rangelands.org/Abstract
The effects of root-plowing on soil organic carbon and nitrogen were investigated by comparing paired undisturbed native rangeland with root-plowed sites in the southern Great Plains. Time since root-plowing ranged from 4 to 22 years. We hypothesized that following root-plowing (1) soil carbon would initially drop but recover to the level of untreated range within a 5-10 year period, and (2) the permanent removal of mesquite trees, which enhance ecosystem carbon and nitrogen and provide shade that lowers soil temperature, would result in a slow decline in soil carbon and nitrogen in this ecosystem. There were not significant differences due to treatment for either soil carbon mass (g m-2) (P=0.81) or nitrogen mass (P=0.62). There were significant differences in soil carbon mass (P=0.0014) with respect to elapsed time since plowing. The upper soil layer (0-100mm) had higher carbon levels (P=0.0001) than the deeper soil layer (100-200mm)(1422 +/- 210 g m-2 vs. 1111 +/- 206 g m-2). Differences in soil nitrogen were similar to those of soil carbon. There were significant differences in nitrogen among years-since-root-plowing observations (P=0.003) and the upper soil layer had higher nitrogen levels than the deeper soil layer 138 +/- 18 g m-2 vs. 107 +/- 18 g m-2) (P=0.0001). When the data were analyzed using paired native site values as covariate to account for site differences, the sites that had been root-plowed 4 years previously had higher soil carbon (pType
textArticle
Language
enISSN
0022-409Xae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.2307/4003639