Changes of surface, fine pore and variable charge properties of a brown forest soil under various tillage practices

Effects of 6 years no-tillage (NT), ploughing, disking and the two last treatments combined with loosening on surface area, water vapor adsorption energy, variable charge and fine pore properties of a brown forest soils were studied using water vapor adsorption–desorption, back-titration and mercury intrusion measurements. The studied soil properties altered markedly under mechanical tillage treatment as compared to NT soil. The radii and the volumes of cryptopores (sizes from 1 to a few tens of nanometers) decreased and the opposite was found for ultramicropores (sizes from a few tens of nanometers to around 10 μm). However, fractal dimension of cryptopores and ultramicropores had changed very slightly, indicating that general geometrical structure of the fine pore system in the studied range (ca 1 nm–10 μm) remained unaltered despite pore size-shift. Surface areas and the amount of variable surface charge were markedly lower in mechanically tilled soil. A decrease of organic matter content was observed as well. Decrease of water vapor adsorption energy and increase of the fraction of strongly acidic surface functional groups accompanied mechanical tillage treatments.