Form Submission: Participation Entry

Climate change projections indicate that the frequency of extreme weather events and drought will increase over the next century, and such changes threaten the stability of global agricultural production by creating poor growing conditions and increasing the risk of crop failure. Improving the resilience of cropping systems to climate perturbations will be essential going forward. One of the primary strategies researchers are promoting is managing soils to increase soil organic matter (SOM). This focus is largely based on the strong link between higher SOM and improved soil water holding capacity, which could mitigate impacts of climate change on yields. But empirical evidence linking improvements in SOM to increased yield stability and resilience is limited. Through a variety of methods and datasets we sought to improve the evidence base that increased SOM both leads to tangible improvements in soil properties that impact the performance of agroecosystems under drought and direct evidence in yield data that these improvements manifest under drought conditions.