Soil carbon varies between different organic and conventional management schemes in arable agriculture

Regressions of changes in topsoil SOC against estimated C inputs showed that 10-20% of C inputs were retained in topsoil SOC over the experimental period. There was no clear indication that belowground C input contributed more to SOC than aboveground C inputs. Despite consistently higher estimated C inputs in organic versus conventional systems, we were not able to detect consistent differences in measured SOC between the systems.