ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Soil Sci.
Sec. Soil Organic Matter Dynamics and Carbon Sequestration
This article is part of the Research TopicSoil Organic Matter for Global Soil Health and DecarbonizationView all 10 articles
The glomalin-related soil protein content as influenced by crop rotation (spring barley monoculture/Norfolk crop rotation), straw application, and tillage
Provisionally accepted
Jiří Balík1*
Pavel Ryant2
Pavel Suran1
Tamara Dryšlová2Vladimír Smutný2
Jindřich Černý1
Martin Kulhánek1Ondřej Sedlář1
Petr Mazánek2- 1Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Czechia
- 2Mendelova univerzita v Brne, Brno, Czechia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Long-term field experiments were established in 1969 at the gleyic fluvisol to assess the effects of soil management on soil organic matter and glomalin-related soil proteins. Two systems were studied: Hordeum vulgare L. monoculture (spring barley monoculture, SBM) and Norfolk crop rotation (NCR) consisting of the following crops: Trifolium or Medicago spp. (clover/alfalfa), Triticum aestivum L. (winter wheat), Zea mays L. (maize), and Hordeum vulgare L. (spring barley). Experimental factors included: i) tillage-ploughing (PL, 22 cm) vs. chiselling (CC, 12-14 cm); ii) straw management-straw removed (SR) vs. straw incorporated (SI; only in SBM); iii) soil sampling depths-0-10 cm, 10-20 cm, and 20-30 cm. Treatments were arranged as split-strip plots with four replications. Chisel cultivation enhanced total glomalin content and increased carbon in soil organic matter (CSOM) content compared to ploughing, particularly in upper soil layers (0-20 cm) in the SBM. Straw incorporation promoted CSOM accumulation more effectively under ploughing than under chisel cultivation but had no measurable effect on the easily extractable glomalin-related soil protein content. The Norfolk crop rotation system significantly improved both CSOM levels and the glomalin-related soil protein content. These results highlight that adopting conservation-oriented soil management can improve soil structure and carbon retention, providing practical guidance for farming systems aiming to maintain long-term soil fertility
Keywords: Carbon, EE-GRSP, Gleyic Fluvisol, soil organic matter, T-GRSP
Received: 30 Jul 2025; Accepted: 16 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Balík, Ryant, Suran, Dryšlová, Smutný, Černý, Kulhánek, Sedlář and Mazánek. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jiří Balík
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.