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Abstract Soil carbohydrates, including microbial extracellular polysacchrides, stabilize soil aggregates and improve soil structure. This study examined whether short‐term managment of C inputs by cover crops and tillage affected polysaccharide‐mediated macroaggregation. Soil was sampled from a Californa prune ( Prunus domestica L.) orchard where an experiment comparing four management techniques, permanent grass cover crop, mowed cover crop, no‐till herbicide, and conventional tillage, had been in place for two seasons. Cover crops significantly increased saturated hydraulic conductivity, acid‐ex‐tractable heavy‐ fraction carbohydrates (those in soil denser than 1.7 g/mL), and macroaggregate slaking resistance over clean‐cultivated or herbicide treatments. Heavy‐fraction carbohydrates are probably mainly composed of microbial extracellualr polysaccharides produced in response to cover‐crop C inputs. Heavy‐fraction carbohydrates were significantly correlated with aggregate stability and satureated hydraulic conductivity, while total organic C and lightfraction carbohydrates were not. There were no differences between soil under herbicide and clean‐cultivation treatments, showing that tillage alone did not measurably affect carbohydrate or soil structure. Heavy‐fraction carbohydrates were shown to be important in the initial improvement of soil structure by cover crops.
Roberson et al. (Wed,) studied this question.