Nature – Liu et al. (2025): Degradable film mulching increases soil carbon sequestration in major Chinese dryland agroecosystems

Zihan Liu, Chenxu Zhao, Nanhai Zhang, Jing Wang, Zhaoyang Li, Yves Uwiragiye, Nyumah Fallah, Thomas W. Crowther, Yuanyuan Huang, Yi Xu, Sheng Zhang, Yakov Kuzyakov, Kadambot H. M. Siddique, Zhikuan Jia, Zucong Cai, Scott X. Chang, Minggang Xu, Christoph Müller and Yi Cheng, IN: Nature Communications, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60036-5

Plastic film mulching (PM), which contributes to nearly half of the increased crop yields in dryland agroecosystems, exacerbates environmental burdens due to its non-degradable nature. Globally, there is a growing demand to replace non-degradable PM with degradable film mulching (DM), yet its impacts on soil organic carbon (SOC) in dryland agroecosystems remains unknown. Here, using multi-field studies and mesocosm experiments, the authors found that DM strongly increased but PM reduced SOC storage (0–1 m).