[Concepts and relative analytical techniques of soil organic matter].

The research of soil organic matter (SOM) has been highlighted in soil science. In the past 50 years, new perspectives in the relationship between SOM and sustainability of atmosphere and biomosphere, and strong motivation to find a vivid index for soil quality variation induced the transformation in concepts and analytical techniques of SOM: the curiousness to humic substances faded off since they were dull to anthropogenic activities, and interests were focused on the light fraction of organic matter (LFOM), organic carbon associated with different mineral particles in size, particulate and intra-particulate organic matter (POM and iPOM), water soluble organic matter (WSOM), and microbial biomass carbon (MB-C). The relative fractionation procedures have been developed, and the main research activities on SOM are transformed from the products of microorganisms (humus) to the organic matter comprised in plant residues at their various decomposition stages and the organic carbon in microorganisms, since they are biologically active and immediately respond to soil cultivation and tillage, crop rotation, and fertilizer application, etc.

[Soil particle size fractionation with centrifugation method].

According to the rotor size of Mandal RC5C and Stoks' law, a segregation procedure for soil particle size fractionation was designed, and used for the particle separation of Huangmian soil(Calcaric cambisols, FAO), Huihe soil (Haplic greyxems, FAO), and Helu soil(Calcic kastanozems, FAO) in the Loess Plateau of China, and of Orthic Brown Chernozem, and Orthic Black Chernozem in Canadian Prairie. The fractionation results of the 5 soils by using this procedure were in line with those of the standard pipette method.

[Influence of cultivation on organic carbon in three typical soils of China Loess Plateau and Canada Prairies].

The dynamics of organic carbon in 3 soils of China Loess Plateau and Canada Prairies was significantly different: in China, the Huangmian soil (Calcaric Cambisols, FAO) lost 77% of total organic carbon (0-20 cm) within 5 years of cultivation, with a decrease rate of 2.11 tons C.hm-2.yr-1, which was mainly caused by water erosion and tillage erosion; and the Huihe soil (haplic greyxems, FAO) lost 70% of total organic carbon (0-20 cm layer) at the rate of 0.961.06 tons C.hm-2.yr-1, because of water erosion and decomposition over 42 years. However, the orthic brown chernozem in Canada lost 11% and 44% of the total soil organic carbon (0-20 cm layer) after 40 and 80 years of cultivation, respectively, with a corresponding rate of 0.17 tons C hm-2.yr-1 and 0.45 tons C hm-2.yr-1. The improvement in tillage and rotation system, which prevented soil from wind erosion and increased current residues into soil, was responsible for the decrease of the loss rate. The dynamics of soil light fraction organic carbon (LFOC) was similar to that of total organic carbon: Huangmian and Heilu soil lost 73% and 90% of LFOC, while orthic brown chernozem lost 74% and 70% of LFOC after breaked in 1920 and 1960, respectively. Among the test soils, Huangmian and Huihe soil had the fast SOC depletion due to the difference in the allocation of organic carbon between LFOC and HFOC.