This paper describes the impact of agricultural management on soil properties on the Galápagos archipelago by comparing arable soils on two islands with the adjacent soils in the national park on identical lava flows. Soil organic carbon stocks, nitrogen, mobile macro- and micronutrients, and microbial parameters changed considerably due to conversion to agriculture. Microbial parameters indicate changes in the nitrogen cycle and impact of fungicides and insecticides found in the arable plots.

The effect of land cover change on soil aggregation and soil organic carbon in complex landscapes is not well understood. We investigated soil organic carbon saturation deficit, soil aggregation and soil fraction associated carbon in two adjacent catchments (tussocks/shrubs and pine forest). Our findings show that physical and chemical soil characteristics are important drivers in such a complex landscape and may have masked the effect of recent vegetation change on soil aggregation and soil fraction associated C.

A single application of manure at 20 t ha^–1 or equivalent fertiliser three years prior had limited long-term effects on soil microbial communities in a cropping field. Differences in community structure and diversity were overwhelmingly due to their depth in the soil profile, not the treatments applied. The strength and timing of amendment application was insufficient to affect microbial communities long-term.

Plant breeders and yield-modellers need new ways to calculate the effects of salt on soil water availability. We present two new and completely different functions to attenuate the differential water capacity (one based in theory, the other in logic alone), plus a plant-sensitivity coefficient, to allow flexibility in determining how much saline water different plants can extract from different soils.

Cotton cropping systems in Australia have poor nitrogen use efficiency. Mineralisation of soil nitrogen contributes to crop nutrition, but accurate quantification is time consuming. Using incubations and in-field measurements, we investigated potential indicators for their capacity to estimate nitrogen mineralisation in Australian vertisols. We found that both soil total nitrogen and total organic carbon can be used to provide rough estimates.

Interest in crop stover harvest for bioenergy production is rising in the Pampas of Argentina. In many soils, the impact of stover harvest on soil organic carbon will be small; however, not more than 30% of stover should be removed to avoid soil fertility depletion. Farmers may offset these stover harvest effects on soils by increasing the proportion of cereals in rotations and applying technological improvements.

The association of intercropping systems with minimum soil tillage, was shown to be a sustainable form of soil management to preserve soil organic matter, soil carbon stocks and to maintain soil quality in the semiarid region of Brazil.

In this study nonlinear random forest and linear regressions were conducted to predict soil organic matter (SOM) using inexpensive Nix^TM pro colour sensor data in arid and semiarid areas of Iran. Results indicated that the accuracy of the nonlinear model in estimating SOM was better than that of the linear model. Results also illustrated that both linear and nonlinear models had higher accuracy in estimation of SOM in the semiarid area compared to arid area.

Climate-smart soil management can help mitigate emissions of N₂O, the most deleterious greenhouse gas. The impact of legume cover crops and urea on soil N₂O emissions was examined and N₂O sources were identified by ¹⁵N labelling. Although N-rich legume residues resulted in less marked emissions than urea, a combination of the two N sources provided no clear-cut environmental advantage.

This study investigated temperature sensitivity (Q₁₀) of different biochars to better understand the Q₁₀ of different soil carbon (C) pools. The Q₁₀s of treatments with biochars, C skeletons and sugarcane residue were negatively correlated with the dissolved organic matter and microbial enzyme activities. The results should aid understanding of the Q₁₀ of C pools in soil in the framework of climate change.

Mechanism of potassium (K) release by CaCl₂ and HCl in calcareous soils was similar via exchange reaction, but organic acids released less K from K-bearing minerals during short-term extraction. However organic acids extracted more K during long-term extraction, possibly due to the dissolution of K-bearing minerals.