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What’s the actual state of soil quality after long-term straw incorporation into the field?
发布时间： 2026-01-12 17:23:48.910
New progress has been made, and the related findings have been published online in the international journal "Science of the Total Environment." Rice-wheat rotation is the primary cropping system in the Yangtze River basin and plays a vital role in ensuring China's food security.
Significant new progress has been made, and the related findings have been published online in the international journal "Science of the Total Environment." Rice-wheat rotation is the primary cropping system in the Yangtze River basin and plays a vital role in ensuring China's food security. The handling and utilization of straw represent a pressing issue in agricultural production, and returning straw to the field is one of the key approaches for its resourceful use.
Studies have shown that returning straw to the field has significant impacts on the physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil; however, little is known about the long-term effects of straw incorporation on the status of soil organic carbon and the interactive changes in related soil enzymes and microbial community structures. Building on the Key Laboratory for Fertilizer Utilization from Agricultural Waste under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, a new study—based on a 14-year-long field experiment at the National Agricultural Environmental Qianjiang Observation and Experiment Station focusing on rice-wheat rotation with straw return—explored the changes in soil organic carbon pools, associated enzyme activities, and microbial community composition under straw-return practices. The results indicate that, under long-term straw-return conditions, the carbon pool management index increased by 37.7%, leading to an expansion in the capacity of the labile organic carbon pool. Changes in the labile organic carbon pool, in turn, enhanced the activities of enzymes involved in carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycling, thereby influencing ecological processes associated with these cycles. Moreover, compared to the subsoil, the topsoil showed more pronounced changes in bacterial and fungal abundance and diversity under long-term straw-return practices, with a significantly enhanced capacity of microorganisms to utilize recalcitrant organic carbon sources. Further analysis by the research team revealed that the labile organic carbon fractions in soil were strongly correlated with the soil microbial community, particularly showing a close association with changes in soil fungi.
This study provides new insights into how returning straw to the field can enhance the soil’s active organic carbon pool and drive changes in soil physical, chemical, and biological properties. It also offers a theoretical basis for using straw return to improve the quality of the cultivated soil layer, and holds practical significance for the sustainable development of grain production under rice-wheat rotation systems.
Keywords:
Agricultural machinery
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