Is it possible to attain the same soil organic matter content in arable agricultural soils as under natural vegetation?

In contrast to these trends for a fairly small effect of zero tillage on SOC there is a body of evidence, mainly from Brazil, showing a marked trend for zero tillage to be effective at preserving SOC after clearance of native Cerrado vegetation growing in highly weathered oxisol soils in tropical environments.

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Zero tillage Several reviews comparing SOC in zero tilled and conventionally tilled soils show a small trend towards increased SOC under zero tillage in many, though not all, situations ( Angers and Eriksen-Hamel, 2008 ; Govaerts et al., 2009 ; Powlson et al., 2012 ).

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