Conservation Agriculture Research Updates - April 2026

This study was conducted on 21 fields in the Paris Basin (France). Allfields were planted to winter wheat the previous year and a variety of crops and or cover crops in the next year. Soil microorganisms, mesofauna and macrofauna were collected in these 21 fields under conventional, organic or conservation agriculture, either long-established or transitioning, ranging in tillage intensity, pesticide treatment intensity and organic inputs. Recent conservation systems had positive effects on Coleoptera larvae density, earthworm density and biomass, and negative effects on fungal abundance (10–20 cm depth). Recent organic systems benefited earthworm density and biomass, and fungal diversity. The authors conclude that "Overall, conservation and organic agriculture benefit different taxa, and reduced tillage could offer the greatest benefits by promoting soil taxa and their interactions. 

This 2-year on-station experiment from IARI, India looked at the impact of conventional (CT), CA and Organic (OA) on pigeonpea grown in a PP-wheat system. CA 1, 2 and 3 were on permanent narrow beds (PNB), broad beds (PBB) and flat (PFB), respectively. All 3 CA treatments performed better better than CT and OA for several parameters. CA2 had greater plant height and dry matter accumulation in both years. All CA treatments had better nodulation, nitrogen fixation and soil health. Yields were better in the 3 CA treatments with CA2 to highest compared to CT and OA. Cost of cultivation was a little higher in CA treatments than CT but gross returns were higher. They conclude that "CA enhances pigeonpea productivity and farmers' income in the upper and middle Gangetic plains of India.

Food security is a challenge in Malawi where agriculture is crucial for livelihoods and rural development. This paper looks at the diversity of different CA systems adopted by rural farmers a District in Malawi. 390 farmers were surveyed who had adopted CA in some form. 97% of these farmers were aware of CA, but adoption rates were much lower because of high labor costs and limited resources. Intercropping was used by 37% of farmers and 30% used manure. Mulching and mixed cropping had low adoption rates. They concluded that "to enhance the adoption of these technologies, it is recommended that strategies be developed to address labour and resource limitations, including context-appropriate training programs, resource enhancement initiatives, and targeted promotional efforts focused on local farming systems.

This interesting article from Japan looks at a solar powered mower integrated into a NT system that reduces GHG emissions. This study evaluates NT and intercropping with solar-powered machinery in organic cherry tomato production. They compared two tillage methods (NT} and rotary tillage (RT)] and two cropping patterns [cherry tomato/peanut intercropping (TP) and monocropping (M)]. Solar-powered robotic mowers replaced conventional mowers in NT to enhance environmental benefits. They assessed the results by crop yield, energy efficiency, carbon footprint, and profitability. They conclude that "NT-TP's potential to enhance yield, energy efficiency, and profitability while reducing the carbon footprint, makes it a sustainable management system for organic farming. 

This paper did an extensive literature review to look at the biodiversity of pulse systems and ecosystem services using different management systems in terms of food/feed provision and soil health.  Most studies examined soil quality, especially chemical quality, followed by grain yield. Very few studies surveyed biodiversity, most of which used arable flora as an indicator. Their results and conclusions showed significant positive impacts with organic farming on biodiversity, no tillage on soil health and yield, and rotations on yield.

This paper collected undisturbed soil cores from the FArming System and Tillage long-term field experiment (FAST) near Zurich (Switzerland) to compare conventional. organic, and conservation agriculture systems for soil structure and physical conditions. This site has been under these 3 systems since 2009. The assessed 28 soil chemical and physical properties and related them to root growth, microbial biomass and bacteria and fungi diversity. They conclude that each management system creates contrasting soil physical environments. It also highlights the trade-off between creating a facilitative environment for root growth by tillage and maintaining complex and diverse soil microhabitats for microbes under conservation agriculture.

This chapter describes some of the negative issues of rice-based systems in South Asia in terms of feeding an expanding population when groundwater and soil resources are degrading, and climate change is negatively impacting productivity. The mention that some recent management systems like conservation and organic agriculture have shown promise to mitigate the above mentioned negative impacts. But they suggest that adoption of regenerative agriculture that has a more holistic (natural resources, climate change, animal crop interactions, social and economic etc.)  approach may be needed in the future.  It sounds very much like the move from cropping systems to farming systems to Ecosystems suggested in the latter part of the 20th century. Just getting CA management components adopted by farmers has been a major challenge and taken a lot of time. Farmers also adopt parts of the package first rather than the more complex whole package.

This article reports uses on-farm data from France, Sweden and Romania  compared to field-experiments nearby to look at reduced tillage, organic farming and use of ley-grass periods into crop rotations to evaluate a more sustainable use of soils. No-tillage generally increased the mean SOC and total N contents of arable fields in comparison with ploughing but only in the 0-10cm layer. NT had no general affects on soil biology. In France, organic farming and ley-grass implementation into the crop rotation increased SOC and total N contents to the level of the no-tillage fields. The On-farm research gave similar results to the long-term field experiments. However, they suggest OFR is important and less costly than field experiments and also helps to exchange knowledge between scientists and farmers.

This paper reports on a field study to assess the productivity, soil health and carbon dynamics of a soybean-wheat system under 4 tillage and residue management treatments (TRMPs); 1) CT w/o residue, 2) CT + residue in both crops, 3) NT w/o residue, and 4) NT + R in both crops. Also 5 organic-nutrient practices (ONMPs). Among the TRMPs, NT +R improved system productivity compared to CT - R. They conclude that the soybean-wheat NT + R at 6 t ha−1 year−1 + NF-based ONMPs (N5) harness higher and sustained productivity under this cropping system while improving soil-health and soil carbon-pools in sandy-loam soils of the north-Indian plains and similar soils across south-Asia.

This article conducted a systematic review to compare crop yield from cropland with conventional management versus different CA practices, specifically reduced- or no-tillage, agroforestry, organic farming and cover crops. The data was first analyzed for different climate regions, soil textures, and cash crop types followed by how yield responses correlated with soil properties change under different CA practices. Their results showed that CA practices provided a mean increase of yield of 12% primarily with maize that had a 41% yield increase. Agroforestry increased crop yield by 66% and cover cropping by 11%, likely due to increases in soil water content and nutrient availability and decreases in erosion and surface runoff. However, other agricultural systems showed no significant increase after CA compared with conventional row cropping practices.

This paper looks at the role of cover crops in weed control either through direct competition, allelopathy or providing a physical barrier for emergence. However, they suggest that cover crop adoption remains limited by poor and/or unstable establishment in dry conditions, the weediness of cover crop volunteers in subsequent cash crops, and seed costs. This review looked at seed traits of various cover crops that would be helpful in selection of CC's for specific systems. They discuss how to improve CC establishment for 3 important CC families. Seed traits related to good germination were important with discussion on dormancy issues. The proper selection of cover crop cultivars and good establishment are vital in weed suppression.

This paper looks at organic agriculture using NT combined with rye cover crop in Japan. They looked at carbon footprint (CF) and energy efficiency in a soybean crop. There were 3 tillage treatments: Moldboard (MP), rotary tillage (RT) and no-till (NT). The two cover crop treatments were fallow and rye. Over 4 years, the NT had significantly lower energy input than MP or RT, but had lower yield of soybean. But using the rye CC resulted in mitigation of NT yield of soybean. NT-Rye increased SOC by 3.5%, less CO2 emissions and had the lowest CF. They recommend NT+RyeCC in organic agriculture. Note that NT without residues is often not as good as NT with residue cover. This study confirms this.

This paper starts by saying that although CA facilitates build-up of SOC, the sequestration potential of arable soils is affected by edaphic factors and is not well understood. The research used an on-farm approach with pairwise comparison of 21 conventional vs highly innovative ‘pioneer’ farms across a wide range of arable soil types and evaluated the leverage of site attributes and management practices such as crop diversity, reduced tillage, organic fertilization, cover cropping and inter cropping on the SOC sequestration potential. While most pioneer management practices proved beneficial for the sequestration of SOC – particularly cover cropping and crop diversity – our results clearly show that soil texture was the most significant shaping factor. Coarse-textured soils had a significantly higher potential for SOC accrual compared to medium- and fine-textured soils. The initial SOC content also had a significant effect on prevalent sequestration potentials. They conclude that carbon farming schemes need reconsideration within the state-of-the-art scientific framework of carbon saturation behavior in order to properly account for biophysical constraints when formulating soil-related climate change mitigation policies. 

This review looks at the latest research on regenerative management strategies and the effects on soil organic carbon content and turnover, since the authors point out the importance of SOC for soil health. Regenerative strategies included CA, rotation, cover crops, organic management, biochar and agroforestry that all improve carbon sequestration. The conclusions are based on 283 studies that had both sort- and long-term field trials. They conclude that their research "outlines the benefits, challenges, and economic prospects associated with these strategies, emphasizing the significance of improving SOC management to promote soil sustainability and mitigate climate change consequences."

This article looks at results from 147 peer reviewed studies from India's major agro-ecological and climatic regions to estimate soil organic carbon (SOC) changes due to Regenerative Agriculture (RA) practices.  RA practices included organic amendments (farmyard manure, green manure, compost, and biochar), no tillage, crop residue retention, and fertilizer management. Results show biochar provided the highest SOC gain. No-till and residue retention had moderate but consistent benefits over time. The most significant SOC gains occurred after 5 years. There was variation across agro-ecological regions, with semi-arid and sub-humid regions showing particularly strong responses. They conclude that RA practices effectively sequester carbon, particularly when applied over longer durations and in regionally adapted combinations.

This paper indicates that CA adoption in India is mostly in the irrigated IndoGangetic Plains and typically uses agrochemicals. This study explores the adoption of CA in a rainfed area of Central India  where farms are organic and look at the factors that led to adoption. Results showed that the variables that were important were farmers’ age, household size (a proxy for labour), extension frequency, farmer’s initiative-taking ability, farming experience, and market accessibility. The majority (90%) of the adopters indicated improvements in soil health, reduction in water use, and increases in yields and quality. They also indicated (80%) that CA led to lower costs, and higher incomes. However, biomass was an issue since farmers use the residues for cattle feed. The conclude that "To scale CA and produce food sustainably in rainfed areas, it is necessary to initiate supporting policy and institutional interventions that would improve extension, biomass production, and availability within the farming system.

This paper looks at the effect of cropping systems on larger macrofauna. They sampled 21 fields in France that were used for conventional, conservation or organic systems, either long-established (≥ 7 years) or in transition (≤ 3 years). Tillage, pesticide treatment and organic matter input intensity were assessed in each field. Macrofauna density and diversity, earthworm ecological categories, species richness and functional traits were investigated. They report that density and diversity showed few differences in respect to cropping systems with high variation across years and groups. They conclude that more information is needed on actual cropping systems in order to better assess the impacts of cropping systems on biodiversity.

This paper from Japan reviewed 68 papers to look at 13 field management categories in terms of importance for mitigation of climate change.The management categories were evaluated in terms of yield, area-scaled greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and yield-scaled GHG emissions against base management practices. Yield increases varied from -6 to +12%. Only non-puddling increased yield and reduce both types of GHG emissions. Water management, (alternate wetting and drying or single and multiple drainage and notillage), reduced both GHG emissions, but reduced yield slightly. The paper concludes and recommends nonpuddling, water management and no-till as climate mitigation options, but suggests other categories like soil fertility be included.

SOC sequestration is an important tool for mitigation of climate change within the EU soil strategy for 2030. This review synthesizes existing knowledge, identifies knowledge gaps and provides research recommendations on trade-offs and synergies between SOC sequestration or SOC accrual, non-CO2 GHG emissions and N leaching related to selected soil management strategies using 87 peer-reviewed articles categorized under tillage management, cropping systems, water management and fertilization and organic matter (OM) inputs. This review provides guidance for policymakers and a framework for field experiments and model simulations.

This meta-analysis compares the yield and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) between conservation tillage (CA?) and conventional (CT) for different cropping systems , mulching methods, N levels and addition of manure in US and China. The results show that CA at high-N enhanced the yield and NUE, and reduced the yield and NUE at low-N, compared to CT. NT with leguminous cover crops (LCC) significantly increased wheat yield NUE under low-N compared to CT. They conclude that based on the results, moderate N with LCC and manure application is recommended for growing winter wheat in dryland regions of the USA and China.

This paper evaluated the effect of different tillage practices plus fertilization on seasonal N20 emissions and the N-cycling microbial community in a maize growing season. NT and conventional tillage (CT) were used with mineral (MIN), compost (ORG) and unfertilized control (CON). Rainfall after addition of fertilizer was the main trigger for N20 emission peaks. The highest cumulative emissions were measured in MIN fertilization, followed by ORG and CON fertilization. CT had higher accumulation of emissions than NT after the first fertilization but there was no significant effect of tillage  across the entire season. A higher genetic potential for N2O emissions was observed under NT than CT. NT decreased in the order CON > MIN > ORG, indicating a higher N2O consumption potential in the NT-ORG treatment. But they conclude that organic fertilization in combination with NT shows a promising combination for mitigating N2O emissions

This paper looked at changes in SOC, microbial biomass and composition while transitioning from conventional to organic farming (2014-2020) in a long-term tillage experiment started in 1999. Non-inversion minimum tillage to a depth of 10 cm (MT) was compared to conventional soil tillage with 25-cm-deep mouldboard ploughing (CT). After 12 years of contrasting tillage in 2011, the uppermost soil layer under MT had a 10% higher SOC content (1.6% w/w) than CT (1.45% w/w). After introducing organic farming in 2014 the SOC content under MT increased to 1.94%, whilst it decreased slightly to 1.36% under CT, resulting in a 43% difference between the two systems. Organic farming also increased microbial biomass in both tillage systems. Organic improved soil health in MT systems but it also increased weed cover that discouraged farmers from adding organic farming to MT.

The paper suggests that the increase in carbon sequestration under long-term NT and cover crop management is a sustainable agricultural system with an increase in SOC and soil respiration. This study looks at the addition of biochar on soil respiration in Japan. Long-term tillage practices, such as NT and moldboard plowing (MP), cover crops such as rye (RY) and fallow (FA), and biochar application such as with biochar (WB) and no biochar (NB) were applied to a split–split plot in a randomized complete block design with four replications. NT had higher respiration compared to MB. Rye had a higher respiration than fallow. Biochar significantly reduced respiration in the soybean and cover crop growing seasons but enhanced carbon sequestration. It reduced respiration by regulating the soil temperature, soil moisture and protect the SOC from decomposition. Biochar also increased SOC, decreased bulk density that improved soil porosity.

This article looks at regenerative agriculture, one of several sustainable narratives that have emerged as solutions for challenges facing agri-food systems. The paper uses 4 prominent narratives -- organic, CA, Sustainable intensification and agro-ecology -- and then discusses how RA fits in with these 4 narratives and what potential it has. They show that there are a number of differences and similarities that have coalesced to drive the emergence of RA. They suggest that regenerative agriculture risks inhibiting deeper agri-food system transformations that address both social and ecological challenges and is not the unifying sustainable agriculture narrative it claims to be. 

This is an interesting article that compares regenerative agriculture with CA in a Mediterranean climate that is characterized by poor quality soils, high climate variability, and resulting heavy agrochemical reliance. CA has helped with these issues and enhanced crop productivity and helped mitigate financial risk, but other issues including herbicide resistance, input costs rising, and increasing climate variability require attention. The aim of this review was to evaluate a set of agroecological practices that constitute a Regenerative Agriculture (RA) concept, for their potential to address these challenges from a soil quality, crop productivity and whole-farm economics perspective. Organic soil amendments from agro-wastes and multi-species cover crops subjected to adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) grazing as a phase within the crop rotation to reduce weed pressure, enhance soil multi-functionality, and resilience against environmental stresses were two interventions discussed. However, they recommend the need for more long-term and context specific research in the future to validate these technologies.