Soil carbon composition and persistence under various management practices on Mollisols

This dataset contains information of the manuscript entitled \"Persistent soil carbon enhanced in Mollisols by well-managed grasslands but not annual grain or dairy forage cropping systems\".
Grasslands-derived Mollisols cover a large area globally and are usually under intensive agricultural production, which has liberated large amounts of carbon (C) into the atmosphere. Whether improved management practices such as no-till, diversified crop rotations, legumes and/or manure additions, or re-establishing perennial grasslands and integrating livestock can restore soil C on Mollisols is unclear. In this study, we utilized the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial (WICST), a long-term trial comparing conventional and alternative agricultural systems in the North Central USA, and studied soil C composition and persistence, and their relationships with soil microbial attributes after 29 years of different agricultural management. 
The soil C composition data include particulate organic m...