2026/02/18 by Cristina Fernández-Soler, Efraín Carrillo-López, Carolina Boix-Fayos +4 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics #Soil Management and Crop Yield #Soil erosion and sediment transport
paper · doi:10.1016/j.eja.2026.128034
openalex publication_date 2026/02/18 · openalex created_date 2026/02/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/03/27
Cover crops have been proposed as a cost-effective sustainable land management (SLM) practice. However, the potential risk of yield reduction remains a major obstacle to their implementation under rainfed conditions in semiarid areas. This study asses the long-term effects of three SLM practices (reduced tillage plus seeded cover crops, reduced tillage plus native cover crops and no tillage plus native cover crops) at six different locations on selected soil quality properties and their relationship to crop yield. At each location, pairs of nearby fields were selected, with one field subjected to a SLM practice and the other to traditional tillage, which served as the control based on frequent tillage. The results of this study revealed that the combination of reduced tillage and seeded cover crops was highly efficient in terms of improving key soil quality parameters (such as aggregate stability, total organic carbon, and porosity characteristics), together with an increase in crop yield. Furthermore, this management effectively increased soil water content at 0–30 cm depth by about 45 % compared to the traditional tillage practice. Under native cover crops, no tillage was associated with improved soil physical and chemical properties, whereas there were no changes in crop yield compared to traditional tillage. In addition, no yield penalty attributable to water competition was observed in any of the studied years. Highly significant relations between soil structural stability and chemical properties with crop yield were also observed. This study provided field evidence on the long-term beneficial effects of reduced tillage with seeded cover crops on soil quality properties and crop yield compared to traditional tillage, allowing land managers to make informed decisions on adopting these practices in semiarid conditions. • Seeded cover crops under reduced tillage improved soil physical and chemical properties. • Native cover crops improved soil physical and chemical properties mainly under no-tillage. • Crop yield was unaffected with native cover crops, while it increased with seeded ones. • No yield penalty attributable to water competition was observed in any case. • High significant correlation among soil structure, organic carbon, nitrogen and crop yield.