Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Geoderma journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoderma No-till and cropping system diversification improve soil health and crop yield Márcio Renato Nunes a,b, ⁎ , Harold Mathijs van Es a , Robert Schindelbeck a , Aaron James Ristow a , Matthew Ryan a a Section of Crop and Soil Sciences, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA b National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Ames, IA 50011, USA. ARTICLE INFO Handling Editor: M. Vepraskas Keywords: No-till systems Cropping systems Soil health ABSTRACT The performance of no-till (NT) in temperate regions may be enhanced through the integration of additional conservation practices such as cover cropping and crop rotations. This study assessed the long-term impacts of continuous (20+ years) NT in comparison to plow-till (PT) management on soil properties and corn (Zea mays L.) yields in New York. The effects of tillage were assessed in combination with different cropping systems (24 years corn monoculture vs. 12 years corn monoculture; and with or without interseeded cover crops) on three soil textures: clay loam, loamy sand and silt loam. We measured four soil biological indicators - organic matter (OM), active carbon (ActC), respiration (Resp) and protein (Prot); four soil physical indicators - available water capacity (AWC), water stable aggregation (WSA), penetration resistance (PR) and water infiltration rate (InfRate); soil chemical indicators (plant available nutrients, pH and total N), and corn yield. Soil managed under long-term NT showed the most favorable soil biological, physical and chemical conditions for plant de- velopment, with higher levels of OM, Prot, Resp, WAS, total N, P and Zn, and InfRate. Benefits of introducing a grass-legume cover crop mixture into the cropping system were evident after 4 years for OM, Prot, Resp, AWC, Fe and Zn. Cover crop effects were greater under NT than PT, and additive to the NT benefits. On the clay loam soil, the effects of a 6-year interruption of continuous corn production with a perennial grass crop were still dis- cernable with several soil health indicators 12 years after resuming corn production under NT. The better soil conditions under NT resulted in higher corn yields in both the loamy sand and silt loam soils, but not the clay loam. Our study shows that long-term NT can be viable in temperate regions, promoting significant improvement in soil health and crop yield and that these benefits are enhanced when NT is combined with crop rotation (perennial grass) and cover crops. 1. Introduction Plow-till (PT) management under temperate conditions is normally practiced to accelerate soil warming and water evaporation in the spring, incorporate surface materials, and temporarily improve soil physical conditions for plant establishment and growth. However, soil changes by intensive tillage may actually do long-term harm by de- grading soil for crop growth and increasing environmental degradation potential (Reicosky et al., 2011; Lal, 2015). The PT can decrease soil aggregate stability and soil macroporosity, increase soil compaction in the soil subsurface (Kinoshita et al., 2017), and promote soil surface crusting after tillage (Unger, 1992). Hence, PT might decrease the depth of root growth and soil water infiltration, and increase soil erosion (Baumhardt et al., 2015). In fact, soil erosion is one of the biggest challenges of PT systems, having on-farm and off-farm impacts: reduced soil depth, impairing the land productivity, and transporting sediments thereby degrading streams and lakes (Baumhardt et al., 2015). Intensive tillage is also damaging to soil biological properties (Martínez et al., 2016a; Kumar et al., 2017; Alhameid et al., 2017). Past studies have shown that it accelerates biological decomposition of plant biomass due to higher availability of oxygen and by exposing older physically-protected soil organic carbon (OC); reduces organic matter https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2018.04.031 Received 2 January 2018; Received in revised form 27 April 2018; Accepted 29 April 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author at: National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Ames, IA 50011, USA. E-mail addresses: márcio_r_nunes@usp.br (M.R. Nunes), hmv1@cornell.edu (H.M. van Es), rrs3@cornell.edu (R. Schindelbeck), ajr229@cornell.edu (A.J. Ristow), mrr232@cornell.edu (M. Ryan). Abbreviations: NT, no-till; PT, plow-till; OM, organic matter; ActC, active carbon; Resp, respiration; Prot, protein; AWC, available water capacity; WSA, water stable aggregation; PR, penetration resistance; InfRate, water infiltration rate; N, nitrogen; OC, organic carbon; CC, cover crops; NC, no cover crops; TCM, time of corn monoculture; TN, total nitrogen; TC, total carbon Geoderma 328 (2018) 30–43 0016-7061/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. T