Abstract

The projected intensification of agriculture to meet food targets of a rapidly growing world population are likely to accentuate already acute problems of soil compaction and deteriorating soil structure in many regions of the world. The key role of soil structure for soil functions, the sensitivity of soil structure to agronomic management practices, and the lack of reliable observations and metrics for soil structure recovery rates after compaction motivated the establishment of a long-term Soil Structure Observatory (SSO) at the Agroscope research institute in Zurich, Switzerland. The primary objective of the SSO is to provide long-term observation data on soil structure evolution after disturbance by compaction, enabling quantification of compaction recovery rates and times. The SSO was designed to provide information on recovery of compacted soil under different post-compaction soil management regimes, including natural recovery of bare and vegetated soil as well as recovery with and without soil tillage. This study focused on the design of the SSO and the characterization of the pre- and post-compaction state of the field. We deployed a monitoring network for continuous observation of soil state variables related to hydrologic and biophysical functions (soil water content, matric potential, temperature, soil air O-2 and CO2 concentrations, O2 diffusion rates, and redox states) as well as periodic sampling and in situ measurements of infiltration, mechanical impedance, soil porosity, gas and water transport properties, crop yields, earthworm populations, and plot-scale geophysical measurements. Besides enabling quantification of recovery rates of compacted soil, we expect that data provided by the SSO will help improve our general understanding of soil structure dynamics.

Published in

Vadose Zone Journal
2017, Volume: 16, number: 4
Publisher: SOIL SCI SOC AMER

SLU Authors

• Keller, Thomas

  • Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Agroscope

Sustainable Development Goals

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss


UKÄ Subject classification

Soil Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2136/vzj2016.11.0118

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/87140