Soil Carbon:An Overview on Soil Carbon Function and its Fractionation

The atmospheric carbon reservoir is significantly affected by change in lithogenic carbon reservoir. Carbon reservoir of soil is strongly influenced by the interaction between different biogeochemical cycles and environmental processes. At the local scale land use and soil management have also a significant impact on the soil carbon pool. Soil carbon is the major determinant of soil quality and agronomic viability because of its influence on other soil features. Different fractionation procedure is often described in terms of the soil organic matter (SOM) pool sizes, chemical properties, and turnover rates. Soil carbon separation includes physical and chemical methods and their combinations in a sequence. Separation of soil carbon according to soil aggregate size, density and magnetic properties is termed as physical separation whiles their solubility, oxidizability, hydrolysability is used in chemical fractionation. Carbon fractionation is a useful tool for observing the changes in different labile, recalcitrant and total pool of soil carbon. Thus, helpful in making decision to locals for adopting proper management practices suitable for a particular soil type in response to economic productivity and soil quality.