Short-term Effects of Tillage Practices on Organic Carbon in Clay Loam Soil of Northeast China

A tillage experiment,consisting of moldboard plow (MP),ridge tillage (RT),and no-tillage (NT),was performed in a randomized complete block design with four replicates to study the effect of 3-year tillage management on SOC content and its distribution in surface layer (30 cm) of a clay loam soil in northeast China.NT did not lead to significant increase of SOC in topsoil (0-5 cm) compared with MP and RT;however,the SOC content in NT soil was remarkably reduced at a depth of 5-20 cm.Accordingly,short-term (3-year) NT management tended to stratify SOC concentration,but not necessarily increase its storage in the plow layer for the soil.