Welcome to Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology! Today is Share:

Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology ›› 2019, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (9): 3028-3038.doi: 10.13287/j.1001-9332.201909.010

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of rotational grazing methods on soil aggregates and organic carbon characteristics in desert steppe.

LU Qi1, MA Hong-bin1,2*, YU Hong-qian1, WANG Li1, SHEN Yan1,2, XU Dong-mei1,2, XIE Ying-zhong1,2   

  1. 1College of Agriculture, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China;
    2Breeding Base for State Key Laboratory of Land Degradation and Ecological Restoration of Northwest China, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China
  • Received:2019-04-18 Online:2019-09-15 Published:2019-09-15
  • Contact: * E-mail: ma_hb@nxu.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Key R&D Project (2016YFC0500505), the Ningxia Science and Technology Innovation Leading Talent Training Project (KJT2018003), the “Light of West China” Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XAB2015A10), the First-class Discipline Construction Project (Pratacultural Science Discipline) for the High School in Ningxia Province (NXYLXK2017A01)

Abstract: Reasonable rotation is of great significance to grassland management. We examined the distribution characteristics, stability, organic carbon content and contribution rate of 0-30 cm soil aggregates in the forbidding grazing, continuous grazing, and rotation in the two-paddock, four-paddock and six-paddock rotational districts in a desert steppe in Ningxia. The results showed that except for the forbidding grazing grassland that was dominated by mechanically stable large aggrega-tes, other water-stable aggregates were mainly composed of microaggregates. Increasing the rotational grazing zoning was conducive to maintain the content of water-stable aggregates in the surface soil and increase the content of large aggregates. The mechanical stability aggregate fractal dimension was the largest in continuous grazing, increased the fractal dimension of the rotation and shepherd partition to reduce the trend, but the fractal dimension of water-stable aggregates did not change. The average weight diameter (MWD) and geometric mean diameter (GMD) of the aggregates were the largest in the pastoral grassland and increased with the increases of the rotational grassland partition. MWD and GMD were negatively correlated with the microaggregate content. The organic carbon content in water-stable large aggregate was higher in the six-paddock rotational district and forbidding grazing, and the two-paddock rotational grazing and continuous grazing were lower. The contribution rate of micro-aggregates organic carbon to soil organic carbon content was higher in this region. In the 0-20 cm soil layer, the contribution rate of organic carbon in large aggregates increased with the increases of rotation. Considering the characteristics of soil aggregates and their organic carbon, the rotation of six-paddock was the most suitable method for rotational grazing in the desert steppe of the study area.