Analysis of Intraseasonal Dynamics of Organic Carbon Content in Arable Sod-Podzolic Soil

Abstract The ongoing work on forecasting changes in soil carbon reserves using various mathematical models requires primary data for different points in time. The paper examines archival results of observations of intraseasonal carbon dynamics obtained in 1983 on arable sod-podzolic soils in the Chashnikovo Research Experimental Center of Moscow State University. Measurements were carried out from June to September on 30 × 30-m plots located in three crop-rotation fields. Samples were taken from layers 0‒10 and 10‒20 of the arable horizon. The repetition of measurements in each period on each field is 25 times. After preliminary rejection of the results that did not meet the hypothesis of homogeneity of the soil horizon, the data were processed by ANOVA. It is shown that, in the arable horizon (0–20 cm layer), the range of intraseasonal variability of carbon content can be about 0.10%. Minimum values of carbon content were observed in August–September.