Improving inherent soil productivity underpins agricultural sustainability

There is now increasing attention to how to raise global food production and security due to the expanding population worldwide.Stable and high yield of crops depends on soil quality improvement, which relies on inherent soil productivity increase. Improvement in inherent soil productivity can provide a range of benefits for soil structure, microorganisms, nutrient cycling, and carbon sequestration. The underlying mechanisms related to inherent soil productivity improvement under different agricultural management practices on large scales need to be further clarified. Therefore, to achieve agricultural sustainability, efforts need to focus on developing technologies related to straw return, tillage management, and cover cropping and understanding their relationships with inherent soil productivity improvement.