INCIDENCE OF MANURE AMENDMENT ON SOIL ORGANIC CARBON STOCK UNDER SEMI-ARID ENVIRONMENT

Soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration contributes in a promising way to the mitigation of climate change by improved land management. This experimental work aims to assess the impacts of organic amendments such as manure on SOC stocks on bare and cultivated soil. A four periods field experiment was conducted using three manures including poultry, horse, and cattle. All manures were applied at 2 kg/m(2) and 4 kg/m(2). Average data in the topsoil (0-20 cm) indicated that all treatments increased SOC stock in comparison to control soil (18.7 Mg C/ha), the highly significant effect (P <0.01) was observed with poultry manure at 4 kg/m(2) with the maximum value (32.8 Mg C/ha), while the lowest (24.8 Mg C/ha) was recorded with horse manure at 4 kg/m(2). Moreover, SOC stocks showed a sustainable improvement on the cultivated soil especially in the upstream stage with horse manure at 4 kg/m(2) (48.6 Mg C/ha), on bare soils, the CO rate returns to the initial value. Finally, SOC stock can be influenced by soil properties, agricultural practices, soil climatic conditions, and also by land use.