Effects of residue coverage on the characteristics of soil carbon pools in orchards

The effects of organic waste coverage on the quality of soil carbon (C) pools in orchards remain unclear. In this study, we performed a 3-year experiment in an 8-year-old Fuji apple orchard to investigate the effects of inter-row weed growing/inner-row pruning residue coverage (PRC), weed coverage (WC), and inter-row weed growing/inner-row non-coverage (used as a control) on the contents of soil water, available nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, organic C components, glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP), soil microbial biomass C, and the number of microorganisms at different soil depths. PRC increased the percentage of readily oxidizable C (ROC), whereas WC improved the percentage of soil humin (HM). Thus, PRC enhanced SOC activity, whereas WC promoted SOC stability. Moreover, soil water, available nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium contents increased in WC in 0–20-cm soil depths as compared to that in PRC, and the correlation between total GRSP (T-GRSP) and HM (r = 0.92) was higher than that between T-GRSP and ROC (r = 0.79). Therefore, T-GRSP is important in HM formation and maintaining stability of C pools. Overall, these results improve our understanding of the positive effect of organic waste coverage on soil internal C cycling and energy flow within an orchard ecosystem.