Overwinter soil denitrification activity and mineral nitrogen pools as affected by management practices

During freeze-thaw events, biophysical changes occurring in soils can affect processes such as mineralization, nitrification and denitrification which control inorganic N balances in agro-ecosystems. To evaluate the impact of these climatic events on soil biochemical properties, a study was conducted comparing soil denitrification enzyme activity (DEA), dissolved organic C (DOC) and inorganic N levels before and after the winter season in plots under: (1) continuous corn (Zea mays L.) (CC) with annual chisel plow and disking, (2) corn-soybean (Glycine max L.) (CS) rotation with chisel plow every other year prior to planting soybean, and (3) corn-soybean-wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)/hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) (CSW-V) with ridge tillage during the corn and soybean crops, and dairy manure application during the corn year. Soil cores were collected in late autumn and immediately after spring thaw at 0-5, 5-10, 10-15, and 15-30 cm depths. Regardless of management practices, freeze-thaw events resulted in significant (2-10 times) increases in NH₄⁺-N, NO₃^--N (P<0.001) and DOC (P<0.01) levels at all soil depths. Following freeze-thaw, DEA remained unchanged in the 5-30 cm depth but dropped significantly (P<0.01) in the 0-5 cm soil layer. In that layer, soils which had been chisel plowed during the previous growing season lost 78-84% of the DEA recorded during the fall, whereas in the plots amended with manure during the previous season, the loss of activity was 40-45%. These data indicate that frequent tillage, compared with manure additions, is more conducive to overwinter loss of DEA in surface layers of soils subject to freeze-thaw cycles.