Traditional rice–wheat cropping system, which follows wet puddling in rice and conventional tillage in wheat, is deteriorating soil health resulting yield stagnation in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia. Conservation agriculture which endorses minimum soil disturbance, residue retention and crop diversification not only improves soil health but also reduces the CO₂ concentration in atmosphere. We hypothesized that adoption of conservation agriculture could improve the soil health and soil organic carbon in comparison with conventional practices. A field experiment was conducted during 2012–2015 to observe the effects of different tillage practices and cropping systems on soil aggregation and carbon dynamics. The experiment comprised of three cropping systems, viz. rice–wheat, RW; rice–maize, RM; rice–lentil, RL, practiced in three tillage practices, viz. conventional tillage, CT; reduced tillage, RT; reduced tillage with 30% residue, RT30 in factorial randomized block design. Adoption of RT and RT30 resulted in higher macroaggregate content of 51.7 and 61.2%, respectively, in comparison with CT. Total water stable aggregates and mean weight diameter (MWD) of aggregates were considerably higher in RT and RT30 treatments, and the effect was most pronounced in the upper 0–15 cm soil layer. The rice–maize cropping system registered the highest macroaggregate content, water stable aggregates (WSA) and MWD of 55.6%, 80.0% and 2.28 mm, respectively, in the upper surface soil. The rice–maize cropping systems under RT30 recorded the highest total soil organic carbon (SOC) stock (51.0 Mg ha⁻¹) in comparison with other systems after 3 years of experimentation. Reduced tillage and residue management resulted in positive changes in soil infiltration rate. The effect of tillage operations and cropping systems on different soil properties (aggregate distribution, WSA, MWD and geometric mean diameter of aggregates, SOC stock, Bulk density) was mostly limited to surface layer of soil.

中文翻译：

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保护性耕作和稻作制度对印度东部恒河平原土壤聚集特征和碳动态的影响

传统的水稻-小麦种植系统，继之以水稻湿法浇灌和小麦的常规耕作，正在恶化土壤健康状况，导致南亚印度恒河平原的单产停滞。保护性农业对土壤干扰，残留物残留和作物多样化的影响最小，不仅改善了土壤健康，还减少了CO ₂大气中的浓度。我们假设与传统做法相比，采用保护性农业可以改善土壤健康和土壤有机碳。在2012-2015年间进行了田间试验，以观察不同耕作方式和耕作制度对土壤聚集和碳动态的影响。该实验包括三个种植系统，即。大米－小麦，RW；水稻－玉米，RM；水稻-小扁豆RL在三种耕作方法中进行实践，即。常规耕作，CT；减少耕作，RT；减少耕作，残留量为30％，采用阶乘随机区组设计的RT30。与CT相比，采用RT和RT30导致更高的大骨料含量分别为51.7％和61.2％。在RT和RT30处理中，总的水稳定骨料和骨料的平均重量直径（MWD）明显更高，这种影响在0-15 cm的上部土壤层中最为明显。稻－玉米种植系统在表层土壤中的总团聚体含量最高，水稳性团聚体（WSA）和MWD分别为55.6％，80.0％和2.28 mm。RT30下的稻－玉米种植系统记录了最高的土壤有机碳（SOC）总量（51.0 Mg ha^-1）与3年实验后的其他系统相比。减少耕作和残留物管理导致土壤入渗率发生积极变化。耕作和耕作制度对不同土壤性质（集料分布，WSA，MWD和集料的几何平均直径，SOC储量，容重）的影响主要限于土壤表层。