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Studying the aggregate fractions of soil is important for understanding the C stabilization. Carbon sequestration in soils has the potential to curb global warming besides maintaining sustainability of agricultural system under tropical and subtropical climate. Thus, a 28-year old experiment was used to assess the impact of rice-wheat cropping system with different sources of organics and grades of fertilization on aggregate stability and aggregate associated carbon in an Inceptisol in India. Among the treatments, 50% RDF+FYM had the highest value of different size distributions of water stable aggregates (WSA) (>2000 μm, 2000-1000 μm, 1000-500 μm, 500-250 μm, 250-100 μm). Irrespective of the treatments, the mesoaggregates (MesoA,250-2000 μm) comprised of 22.6% of the total WSA compared to 72.6% as coarse macro aggregates (CMacA, > 2000μm) and 4.7% as coarse micro aggregates, (CMicA, 250-100 μm). Of the total aggregate associated C, macro aggregates (> 250 μm) had higher amounts (65.8%) compared to micro aggregates (< 250 μm, 34.2%).Application of organics increased C accumulation in different aggregates, the effect was more pronounced with macroaggregates than microaggregates.
Keywords: Microaggregate, Aggregate cssociated carbon, Mesoaggregate.