Conventional and Zero Tillage with Residue Management in Rice–Wheat System in the Indo-Gangetic Plains: Impact on Thermal Sensitivity of Soil Organic Carbon Respiration and Enzyme Activity

The impact of global warming on soil carbon (C) mineralization from bulk and aggregated soil in conservation agriculture (CA) is noteworthy to predict the future of C cycle. Therefore, sensitivity of soil C mineralization to temperature was studied from 18 years of a CA experiment under rice–wheat cropping system in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). The experiment comprised of three tillage systems: zero tillage (ZT), conventional tillage (CT), and strip tillage (ST), each with three levels of residue management: residue removal (NR), residue burning (RB), and residue retention (R). Cumulative carbon mineralization (C(t)) in the 0–5 cm soil depth was significantly higher in CT with added residues (CT-R) and ZT with added residues (ZT-R) compared with the CT without residues (CT-NR). It resulted in higher CO(2) evolution in CT-R and ZT-R. The plots, having crop residue in both CT and ZT system, had higher (p < 0.05) Van’t-Hoff factor (Q(10)) and activation energy (Ea) than the residue burning. Notably, micro-aggregates had significantly higher Ea than bulk soil (~14%) and macro-aggregates (~40%). Aggregate-associated C content was higher in ZT compared with CT (p < 0.05). Conventional tillage with residue burning had a reduced glomalin content and β-D-glucosidase activity than that of ZT-R. The ZT-R improved the aggregate-associated C that could sustain the soil biological diversity in the long-run possibly due to higher physical, chemical, and matrix-mediated protection of SOC. Thus, it is advisable to maintain the crop residues on the soil surface in ZT condition (~CA) to cut back on valuable C from soils under IGP and similar agro-ecologies.