Comparison of equivalent soil mass approaches to estimate soil organic carbon stocks under long-term tillage

Summary

In agricultural ecosystems, soil organic carbon (SOC) which is affected by management practices, is important for soil health, food security, and climate change mitigation. However, accurately assessing the influence of agricultural management practices on SOC storage is a challenge, due in part to the uncertainty of calculation approaches used to estimate SOC stocks. Although equivalent soil mass (ESM) is widely recommended over the fixed depth (FD) approach, few field studies directly compare FD with different ESM approaches. Hence, the magnitude of potential difference in estimated SOC stocks among different approaches is not well known. Here, we collected soil cores (0–60 cm depth) from a 24-yr experiment (Ridgetown, Ontario, Canada) to investigate (1) the effect of two tillage systems